Outside assistance in Triathlon

sconhome

Seems the rules have been tightened on what constitutes outside assistance in racing.

My thoughts on this go back to the selection of the teams in the Olympics where pacers were used (allegedly) to help place the medals. At the time I thought it was a strange approach to what is an individual sport.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/News/WTC_Clarifies_Outside_Assistance_3245.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_252271748233770_1077903_252513014876310#f3af98161abcd

RayCun

The odd thing about that story is that
Drafting is not allowed in that race
The outside assistance that took place was (mainly) drafting
But the authorities say "we have to look at the rules on outside assistance", not "we need to enforce the rules on drafting"

sconhome

RayCun wrote: »

The odd thing about that story is that
Drafting is not allowed in that race
The outside assistance that took place was (mainly) drafting
But the authorities say "we have to look at the rules on outside assistance", not "we need to enforce the rules on drafting"

Reading between the lines it seems that he paced or drafted her in the swim, which is allowed, and then spent the majority of the cycle in front of her in a train. If she sits just over 10m behind his front wheel she is not drafting (technically) but is gaining an advantage on energy expenditure by a hole in the wind he is punching for her. Pros do this all the time and work through and over.

Same sex trains don't seem to be deemed outside assistance wheras like Paula Radcliff in the marathon, if you're towed around by a bigger, stronger member of the opposite sex it is.

Plus, shes a doper. Should be out for life anyway.

tunney

RayCun wrote: »

The odd thing about that story is that
Drafting is not allowed in that race
The outside assistance that took place was (mainly) drafting
But the authorities say "we have to look at the rules on outside assistance", not "we need to enforce the rules on drafting"

Devils advocate - legal pace line.

RayCun

tunney wrote: »

Devils advocate - legal pace line.

Allow drafting? Would make triathlon even more of a swim/cycle warm-up followed by a footrace, wouldn't it?

sconhome

Technically a pace line is not drafting. It's skirting very close to the wind regarding the rules but is still legal.

The issue is more to do with the fact that by being paced by a 'stronger' male athlete the woman has had an unfair advantage over her female competitors.

peter kern

which is kind of planned when you have 2 min gaps between males and females as the good females exit the water with the guys.
I think all the female podium athleltes in hawaii got drafting penalties this year .

the top female pros swim around 52-58 the average male pros sometimes up to 1.07 and females starting only a couple minute behind the guys it is a planned comming togheter of males and females.

BTH

What you are leaving out Peter, is that once the pro men get on the bike, they're all putting in sub 5 bike splits, while the women aren't getting anywhere near that (looking at Kona results). Getting out of the water with slow pro men swimmers is very little use to the women when they're losing 45min on the bike leg. How much of a legal draft are they going to get from that??

The difference in this case is that the guy clearly rode slower to give a draft to his otherhalf, which gave her an unfair advantage. That he also interfered (love the use of that word in the article, its like catholic Ireland all over again) with the other ladies who outswam her makes it even worse.

peter kern

Bth have a look at the results.
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/events/ironman/world-championship/results.aspx#axzz2DWXQMFDf
an thats hawaii in other races its a bigger issue.


and dodnt forget the fastest female hawaii spilt 2012 was by an female amateur with 5.02 ....
and as far as I know both leanda cave and steffen got penalites that involved males.


In this specific Miami case their is obviously an issue but the main issue is their was no marshall around .

so the problem is you can make as many rules as you want if no marshal is with the top 3 females...... the rule will not work .