so far a few good ideas. It is good to see some brainstorming going on, this is how we make things better.
<< Same on the bike. Calling the # means that you are busted. No warning. You heard it (maybe not if you ride with earphones) and you will KNOW that you are penalized.
I like this idea, when a person is busted, they are told on the spot. Then we just have to determine how to penalize them. I like the idea of a real time race, where when you cross the finish line, tht is your time and there are no further adjustments, but things like a penalty box might work for Ironman length races, but is it applicable for shorter race? It might be, in fact it might be even more of a real penalty as it has been shown that it isn't much of a penalty in and Ironman length race.
<< I don't envy USAT officials who have to deal with several sets of rules (depending on what organization they happen to officiate for)
USAT officials only officiate USAT sanctioned races, and there are only one set of rules for those races. WTC Ironman races and 70.3 races have their own rules and use their own officials, not USAT officials.
<< I have not heard that USAT provides real world training before they are allowed to work at a race. To my knowledge they are trained "on the job".
is that not one and the same? Real world training and on the job training? Not sure what you mean, but the process is that a potential official takes a one day classroom course, and then the following day serves an apprenticeship on the course at a race. Most officials clinics are held at races, the day before. Once they have done their race apprentiseship, they then submit their weritten test and if everyting checks out, they become a lower level official.
As some others have pointed out, it's not so much that the rules are wrong, there needs to be some tweaking, and I think the WTC rules need more tweaking, but it's in the actual enforcement of the rules. Having enough officials on the course, and training to them to make good judgement calls and be able to judge the intent more. Two problems here, first, the race director needs to bring in enough officials to cover their race adequately. It is an expense, but it's not expensive. For an Ironman distance race, officials get paid $100 for the whole day. If they have to travel to the race, they are paid mileage and a motel room. Local officials are used whenever possible. This is where having a larger pool of officials could really help as it would cut down on the travel expense for the RD in paying officials. We have many good officials. Anyone that has done a Charlie Crawford officiated race can't tell me that he isn't one of the most strict, and fair officials out there.
The second problem is the vocal majority. The people that complain the most in the past have been the one's that get caught, they complain to the RD and the RD is afraid of losing entrants. So in turn he doesn't want a strictly enforced race. Certainly there are many exceptions and a lot of RD's do want a strictly enforced race, but one particular group of RD's don't (not mentioning names). On this message board, it seems that the vocal majority here is against drafting and wants better officiating, but the sad truth is, a majority here is still a minority out in the ral world of our sport, even though this is probably one of the most widely read tri related message boards in the world.
<< We all agree that we are not getting what we pay for, if you agree that our fee entitles us to proper rule enforcement. The question is, what do we do about it.
tell the RD. If they had plenty of officials, tell them that you liked that and appreciated that their race was well officiated. If they didn't have enough officials, tell the RD that also. There are certain rules about how many officials should be at a race that has a championship designation, but for other races, it is up to the race director to make the request. There are guidelines and recommendations, but for the average sanctioned race, the RD makes the call on how many officials to actually request. If the race you did was sanctioned and didn't have officials, let the RD know that you won't come back until he gets officials, if that is the way you feel.
Until the people that want better officiating and more officials out on the course become the vocal majority, the RD's aren't going to do anything about it. In the meantime, we can still work to come up with a better, more universal set of rules that everyone can use.
Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org