this is hogwash. by your logic swapping bibs is the same as Madoff fraud. Cheating's cheating right!? God I hate people who think like this, they've lost all capacity for rational thought. Breaking the rule just so you can race is not the same as breaking the rule to get a Kona spot. Give me a break.

Your kidding me with the grammar shit.

Would you recommend then that the severity of the punishment be based on finish time or placing?

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This kind of black and white attitude, extended into all facets of life, would lead to perhaps one or two licensed drivers in all of the country. I bet most of you are "that guy" who cries out loud when someone takes 15 items into the 10 item check out lane.

well that's just not fair. Nobody likes the guy taking 15 items into the 10 item lane. He should go to the 20 item lane like a responsible shopper!

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In response to the front page, I'm pretty shocked, and a little confused about the 1 day fees.

First, the local Tri's I've done the one day fee is collected at the packet pickup, not in advance. I've read that for WTC this is done Via active.

And second, how many are there in comparison to annual memberships?

Certainly the RD would need to report number of starters, but that wouldn't reflect the number of fees without specifics of each individual racer.

Outside of that the question becomes, are RDs making a killing off of these races, or does lost revenue from over selling end up increasing race fees?

If it would increase the fees then do we, as participants (I can not in good faith use the word racer with regards to myself), prefer to take the risk of losing our fee here and there, or prefer to pay more for the races we do?

I should have put my post in pink. It is breaking the rules of the organizations involved in putting on the race.

I may not like the rules, and I don't like the refund policy, but those are the rules as they stand. So what happened was certainly a trangression of the rules that the race organization has established...don't like it, then either don't pay, or pay and strive to influence the organization that puts it on.

I prefer the latter option (I probably give WTC in the range of $2000 per year, but I also give them). Not paying does not solve the problem because there are enough guys lined up to give them money and replace the revenue that I give them. WTC events are like Microsoft Windows....sometimes you just have to use Microsoft because it is the way it is (in the case of WTC, they control the keys to Kona and no one else does).

So I believe it is OK to be a customer of a company's services and provide feedback to the company on how to improve. You can like some parts of their service, while hating the other and then work collaboratively with them to improve the part that you hate.


Dev

You're right. I've had it. This thread is now about publicly shaming those bastards. Let's post pictures, addresses, you name it.

Shouldn't be that hard, we know the AG, we know he only got passes by 5 people on the bike and he's from Cali.
Look at AG with fast bike, then look for someone from Cali

We also know he does a lot of races, when a name is established you can cross reference some finisher pix from other races.

Isn't this the reason they do expanded race results?

You wanna go ahead and advise us on your new policy of deleting any information that could out on course cheating given that certain posts are now gone from this thread. Posts that in the past there was no issue with. Your typical moving target standard?

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My take on the original post that this has nothing to do with a bogus charge of cheating. It does not even have much to do with breaking a rule. The OP does not like the people, wants to get them in trouble by tattling on them, and is looking for moral justification. The OP was even angry at seeing the person who gave away his slot having a good time watching the race. Jeebus! How dare he show up to a triathlon and enjoy himself while taking pictures. How dare he!

The OP is the one who should be looking at her own values.

Not if the bandit's results are in an age-group other than his actual age. Then everybody in that age group is racing against a younger guy and all the juiced up guys.

The transgressors not only knowingly broke the rules but made their cheating public. I don't think the OPs values are really questionable here, not are her motives.

Whatever the motives of the bib-swappers, the result is someone racing under a false identity. It impacts more than just the guys involved in the swap.

I'd love to see a proper transfer system, but there isn't one. That doesn't making racing for someone else -as them- okay. Rules aren't just for FOP. If you choose to break the rules, don't be surprised if you get caught and punished. Argue about whether the punishment is fair all you want, but the rules are clear.

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How's the little mustache coming along?

-Jot

But but but don't you understand, there are people that SPEED IN THEIR CARS ON THE HIGHWAY!

SOMETIMES PEOPLE CHANGE LANES WITHOUT A BLINKER!!!!

How? Apparently the only person affected was the OP who was offended by the guy who gave up his slot having a jolly time watching the race.

You have to look at the bigger picture. It's not just what actually happened in this specific instance, but what was the potential and its impact in the long term. As has happened at (at least) one other race, bandits have sued race organizations for insurance coverage. If a jury finds in favor for the plaintiff, insurance costs go up. Even if the plaintiff loses, there are court and lawyer costs. In the end, this leads to higher costs for you and me when we race. Just like rates for a life insurance policy is higher for a smoker than a non-smoker, insurance will cost more if we don't actively enforce penalties against someone who is racing without having signed the appropriate waivers that will protect the race organization (again, to the maximum allowable by the jurisdiction that any lawsuit comes up in.) When you're insurance coverage is for hundreds of events per year, then an event like a bandit getting injured and wanting coverage move up from the "that won't happen" to "with the numbers of athletes involved, it's statistically possible, and on occasions will happen." That's the big picture of why the "no unauthorized transfers" rule is there.

Each violation has a prescribed penalty. Draft and you get a time penalty. Lie and we don't see you for a year.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
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It seems to me, I am not the one that has lost perspective. It's just a race. I didn't say it was illegal. I said it's cheating in the race. We all COMPETE to see how well we can do. For some that might mean time, for others where they place in their AG. Cheating is eligible for punishment. I know speeding is against the law and I can be punished for such. Someone is free to call me an outlaw if they so desire I guess. But these 2 people are race cheats, plain and simple. They might otherwise be fine humanitarians, but they cheated in this race.

I was not offended. My reference to "Jolly as Santa Claus" was of shock he was even still there, he wasn't injured, sick, there was no visible reason why he didn't race.

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"Though she be but little, she is fierce" ~Shakespeare | Powered by HD Coaching | 2014 Wattie Ink Triathlon Team | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Yea but the real questions here is. Why do you care?

On labeling this activity as "cheating":

The people who have interest in labeling this action with the same label that is attached to people who fake their results for personal gain have an agenda.

They don't like the behavior, so they label how they want in an attempt to prevent others from participating in it.

Civil disobedience, whether it's (government or corporate based) isn't cheating. It's a method of getting things done when you've accepted that good faith has been lost between the leaders of those organizations and it's customers / people. Judge the practice if you will, but categorizing it as cheating only makes you look uneducated. Categorizing people who do it with the people who really are cheating (one trying to get an enhanced fake result in their name for personal gain) is mislabeling.

It's no different than when in a debate and they call you a name (a label). They have surrendered from trying to establish higher ground based on the original premise (morality - since the organizer's reasons for not allowing transfers is dripping with greed) so they search for others ways to degrade the practice.

Since the word "cheating" is the worst word they can think of to call a person in racing, that's the one their ego picks. Not because your bad, but because their ego is angry / frustrated / disgusted / needing to judge / able to be satisfied by categorizing you with people that you share no attributes with.

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On higher race costs:

When Peanut explains that "higher cost of the race" is at stake if we don't stop people from doing this... when WTC is the highest price race of all of them (yet is the one that prevents bib swaps, transfers, forwarding that instigate it in the first place) it's leaves me smiling at the real ramifications.

Since USAT is the insurance provider, if they realize through their risk analysis that it's the races where RD's prevent transfers where higher percentages of bandits will exist (common sense) then those races will eventually be the ones forced to pay higher fees if the USAT wants to fairly distribute risk in their insurance costs. Charging a race that allows bib transfers a higher rate, when they have lower risk would not only be a failure on their part to charge races the fee that equals their risk, it simply isn't the way free market works. If they continue to do it this way then they need to be informed of their unbalanced methods.

I'll save the time of someone from one of these organizations from having to explain if their policy isn't currently written to do it that way. If it would require their insurance coverage to be split (1 policy for races that don't allow bib transfers = higher cost, 1 policy for racers that does allow bib transfers = lower cost) so be it. These are big policies that can be written however they need to be. Yet if this was the outcome, then it's exactly what needs to happen (not only because it's what I want, but because it's how businesses that have riskier policies should be assessed by the insurer). Then when the WTC passes those higher costs on to the WTC participants, the free market will be able to work as it's suppose to.

When organizations are held responsible for the full ramifications of their policies, consumers and business get better products, as market forces are allowed to work when consumers dollars mean more (to everyone). It's exactly how competition makes products and people better.

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Will it actually increase costs as Peanut suggests?

Insurance premiums take into consideration all the risk factors observable. They know bandits exist, so the current insurance costs reflect that already.

I'm confused....."We" (Age Group Athletes) seem to care more about whether or not the WTC or RD pays a premium for increased insurance. We also seem to care whether or not someone in an age group may or may have not been in their age group finished at 350th place or not.

When you race a 140.6 distance race and you are running in the dark, do you really care if someone passes you? Or do you just want your own pain to end?

What difference does this make? Start focusing on your own training and stop worrying about whether or not people exchange bibs.

Could you imagine if he had been the cause of one of the many disastrous bike accidents that day? How would you feel if he hit you or your spouse or child who was racing (or spectating)? Would you take the same stance or the would it suddenly matter that some asshole was "banditing" a race?

For whatever reason WTC does not allow bib transfers, until they choose to have a system in place or agree to transfer your bib, then I'd either follow their rules or don't register for their races.

Hopefully between my thread and Dan's piece someone at WTC is "listening". This may have a happy ending for all who enjoy WTC events or who don't register for this reason.

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"Though she be but little, she is fierce" ~Shakespeare | Powered by HD Coaching | 2014 Wattie Ink Triathlon Team | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter