logella wrote:
There's also a Wiltshire rule. 4.11(e)
This one came out halfway through the year last year (started to be enforced in Elite races starting in June). If you don't get the link, a quick google search on Harry Wiltshire and Javier Gomez should make this crystal clear... The rule was slightly adjusted this year though, to more clearly exclude incidental contact.
Not sure about how they apply in the US, since USAT's rules have always been a bit different from everyone else, but other highlights from the update include:
- Disc brakes legal for all competitions (as mentioned above, sharpen up your spinning knives, and cut up the draft legal fields...)
- Swim skins for middle and long distance events no longer have to meet ITU uniform rules (but logos have to be within the sizing guidelines in the ITU wetsuit rules), which should be a big win for those doing ITU long distance champs... (maybe not an issue for Denmark, since I can't see that being non-wetsuit, but for Pontevedra in 2019...)
- The rules around sleeved tri suits has been sort of clarified (but hasn't changed, only legal for middle and long distance events, where wetsuits are legal... still illegal for non-wetsuit swims)
- Exposed midriffs are now legal in middle and long distance events (less worry about your two-piece top riding up and getting a penalty, and they won't have to DQ half of the Kona women's elite field for running in their sports bras... Seeing as Ironman and ITU are supposed to be enforcing a harmonized set of rules for next season)... I'll chalk this one up to Ironman's influence on the process, because otherwise, I wouldn't have forseen the ITU going this route...
- Smart helmets were made illegal (they were never explicitly legal... but they are now explicitly illegal), which is basically a continuation of the headphones rule...
- The modifications to the portable electronic devices rules basically re-instate the ban on them (you can carry your phone but you can't actually use it...), rules expanded to smart watches...
- Middle distance (i.e. HIM type distances) have gotten their own penalty scale (drafting is still the same as long distance, but yellow card offenses (everything except for drafting) will be shorter penalties than for LD (30sec vs. 60sec)
- Some changes to protest and appeal processes (can't protest drafting calls, can choose not to serve a time penalty for anything else and protest after the event (but the risk being that if you lose, and didn't serve the time penalty, it's a DQ... so it becomes a tactical decision, serve the penalty, get a lower placing, but a guaranteed result, or risk no result by protesting the penalty and go for a higher placed finish... This is where having a coach/team manager with a strong knowledge of the rules/system will be critical, to advise their athletes under what circumstances taking the risk might be worthwhile...)
In terms of the "Duffy rule"... I have to chuckle at this, there's no way this affects the Olympics... There will not be composite teams in the OG (no matter who's country can't field a team). What this does do, now that there's the MTR series, is allow the use of composite teams to help fill out the field at some of the events. Hamburg will never have an issue of having small fields, but with some of the other events, if countries don't send a full compliment of racers to the paired WTS event, there may be variable field sizes, so this gives some flexibility to make for better viewing with deeper and more competitive racing, and to give some of the athletes from nations with less depth a chance to dip their feet in the MTR and hone their skills (while they wait for other talent to develop to potentially field an MTR team down the road...). It's also worth noting that while Bermuda is unlikely to be able to field an MTR team for Duffy, Norway is not out of the question, on top of Blummenfelt, they have that young kid who featured in the lead packs of a few races late in the season providing a solid second male racer, and a few women starting to put up some decent performances on the Continental/World Cup circuits, that might be able to make the jump to top 20-30 results on the WTS by 2019...