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USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals
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https://www.teamusa.org/...tional-Championships

How was scoring messed up so badly? Every overall placing was incorrect except for the men's team title. I guess I figured they wouldn't still be scoring these events by hand.
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [lemmons7] [ In reply to ]
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Wow, at a nationals level.

I did the HITS napa race where the race result times were messed up. I wrote USAT about it and was told they would get back to me.
No one got back to me and they posted and ranked wrong times.

So, interesting to see they were willing to correct the collegiate times, but not deal with the HITS Napa wrong times.

Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [lemmons7] [ In reply to ]
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In the women's non drafting race, the top finisher from CU had a comma after her school name meaning the system didn't include her into the overall results. It wasn't scored by hand. Why this mistake was even allowed to happen, I have no idea.
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [lemmons7] [ In reply to ]
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Comma delimited (CSV) file import into Excel fail?

USAT sent a nats invite to a bunch of people last year by mistake. Then corrected it a few days later. Sorry you aren't invited. Gee. Thanks.
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [lemmons7] [ In reply to ]
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They fucked up but they owned it too. I was down there for the event, tough to see Olympic winner lose out for racking bike in T2 wrong way. But such is life. I'm surprised they can't have an almost "live" team standings tracking with all the technology these days.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [lemmons7] [ In reply to ]
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lemmons7 wrote:
https://www.teamusa.org/...tional-Championships

How was scoring messed up so badly?

I guess the same way they designed that web site for results...

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"
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Post deleted by STP [ In reply to ]
Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [STP] [ In reply to ]
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I could be wrong (I wasn't there) but I imagine one of the coaches must have caught it.
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [STP] [ In reply to ]
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I wasn't at the awards ceremony, but to my understanding​ they did. The result was questioned immediately and officially reviewed that night
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [STP] [ In reply to ]
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 Bad on USAT for screwing up but super bad on the affected coaches or team managers for not catching it.

-----

The coaches were the ones who let them know post awards. And several coaches who teams got on podium went to usat to acknowledge issues.

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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B_Doughtie wrote:
They fucked up but they owned it too. I was down there for the event, tough to see Olympic winner lose out for racking bike in T2 wrong way. But such is life. I'm surprised they can't have an almost "live" team standings tracking with all the technology these days.

Wrong way? What wrong way?

Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]
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University of Colorado had the entire event scored by two people separately prior to the awards ceremony. We pointed out the mistake immediately after the announcement and then hung around until USAT could confirm with the scoring company that a mistake was made. Our numbers aligned exactly with everything except their CU women's and overall scores allowing them to quickly track down the error but not fast enough as everyone had left. We were told we were overall winners before leaving that evening and actually grabbed some podium photos.

Why CU women not being in the top 5 with a 4th and 5th place finish and historical track record of podium finishes wasn't enough to pause the awards ceremony I don't know... The most frustrating part for us was the almost 3 day wait for them to publicly correct their error and post the correct results.

ETA: Just want to include some insight I've received since posting this and slightly back track on the comment above although I will leave it as a valid frustration. The thunderstorms and combination of new scorers actually caused the awards to begin as the results were still coming in and with no time for validation, a valid problem in my mind. The strange placements were recognized but with no ability to check with tight timelines, the number of penalties present and no team score breakdowns. Post-awards USAT was quick to work with us to find the error but I feel my frustration with the delay is valid and I've shared my reasons with USAT. I am aware now that USAT conducted an extensive top to bottom scoring review and all affected notifications that had to be made prior to the public announcement.
Last edited by: JTolandTRI: Apr 25, 17 17:00
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [h2ofun] [ In reply to ]
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Two of our scoring CU men received racking penalties due to racking the wrong way. Their bikes were in the correct spot but with the wheel touching on the wrong side of the rack. Multiple other bikes in the same area and 50+ in the transition area were racked the same way without penalty. Our team felt personally that it was somewhat bias to enforce it only on certain people/groups but I guess scrutiny is to be expected with certain performances. The USAT refs clarified that they do not enforce this rule at other National championship events.
Last edited by: JTolandTRI: Apr 25, 17 11:11
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [STP] [ In reply to ]
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As above. University of Colorado has multiple people scoring the event as you mention doing so yourself. We knew of the error immediately and actually received informal confirmation of final results while waiting at the awards venue after the ceremony. Unfortunately it took 3 days for the formal announcement to be published.
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [lemmons7] [ In reply to ]
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I'm the coach for one of the universities involved, here's what I experienced and was told what happened:

The draft legal race was scored differently than years past to make it more heavily weighted. This year the total points for each place were 2.5x years past, in addition the space between each placing was 5 points instead of one. Exl - winner of DL race in 2016 received 100points, 2nd place 99 etc. This year the winner received 250, 2nd place 245 etc.
The timing company scored the race the same as years past thus the team totals were far off, Colorado dominated the DL race this year.

As to why the coaches didn't catch it is because USAT doesn't allow us to protest, and doesn't announce results until the awards ceremony itself. USAT officials are the ones in charge of catching mistakes and protesting penalties, results, etc during the non draft race, athletes were not notified of penalties until well after the finish and weren't allowed for protest on their own behalf. Same for results, we weren't allowed to protest and we didn't know the results until teams were called to the stage.

In fact, the team who was at first awarded the championship, Navy, seemed to be aware on race day that it was a lot closer than USAT made it seem. The announcer said repeatedly, "they don't seem to believe it, but the math says they are the winners." Looks like Navy was right.
Last edited by: peace242000: Apr 25, 17 11:40
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [JTolandTRI] [ In reply to ]
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In defense of USAT for the racking penalties, the head official could not have made it more clear that this was a rule this year and that they would try to enforce it strictly. He spent like 5 minutes clarifying questions and telling all coaches to go back to their team and make sure everyone knew and to explain the racking procedure to them.
I fully agree that it was selectively enforced, and that's not right. One of our podium athletes lost about 30seconds a couple of years ago because he was trying to rack his bike correctly while the rest of the front guys had just thrown their's haphazardly into t2. Some type of rule needed to be made, but they should enforce it equally. And having two different racking rules for DL vs non-draft also seems a bit ridiculous.
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [JTolandTRI] [ In reply to ]
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Sorry to add to your pain! Sounds like you guys were on it. That makes the USAT mistake infinitely worse.
Last edited by: STP: Apr 25, 17 11:28
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [peace242000] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for the feedback. We've had a bit of this conversation internally. We sent representatives to the meeting as opposed to attending as a whole (which sounds like it may not be possible even if desired in the future due to small room size). One thing that was brought up as a possibility was recording the meeting as a team or requesting it to be from USAT. I believe they do that for the Junior Elite series? Or at least post the slides from the meetings.
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [JTolandTRI] [ In reply to ]
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Yeah, I agree. Something needs to be done to make this better. We recorded it ourselves, but I walked out thinking, "somebody in this race is going to get a really important penalty."
I had my athlete move up on the podium because of Dan's penalty, but I feel awful for him, especially with how many people should have received penalties for the same thing too.
Last edited by: peace242000: Apr 25, 17 11:41
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [peace242000] [ In reply to ]
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Sounds like the desire to create a dramatic awards ceremony by keeping the results closely held until the "big reveal" backfired in a big way. Kinda stupid.

I host a competitive Time/Speed/Distance Road Rally event every year. I like to do the "big reveal" style awards announcements, but I do give every team a sheet with their scores (but not finish position) first. They do a quick audit, then return them to me, either saying they agree with their score, or that they think there's a discrepancy. If there is a disagreement, I run the calculations again and resolve any differences before stepping up to the podium and announcing the finishing order. This system has saved me from ever having to retract any announced results, despite numerous "first pass" scoring errors on my part.

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [JTolandTRI] [ In reply to ]
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Hello Jack! As the former local kid from the PNW now on the national stage, you were amoung my first thoughts upon seeing the results.

You owe us an annual lookback at your collegiate racing season and experience! Slowtwitch remains all about long course, so your story would be a welcome breath of fresh air.

Hope all is well,

Scott
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [JTolandTRI] [ In reply to ]
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JTolandTRI wrote:
Two of our scoring CU men received racking penalties due to racking the wrong way. Their bikes were in the correct spot but with the wheel touching on the wrong side of the rack. Multiple other bikes in the same area and 50+ in the transition area were racked the same way without penalty. Our team felt personally that it was somewhat bias to enforce it only on certain people/groups but I guess scrutiny is to be expected with certain performances. The USAT refs clarified that they do not enforce this rule at other National championship events.

Interesting. I have talked to Charlie directly about this in the past. I also dealt with this at Du Nationals last year. Bottom line from what I have been told is this is not
mandatory, but optional. My seat is so high that I cannot get my bike underneath a lot of the bike racks. So I always rack my bike on the brakes. Anytime someone tries to tell me I am wrong, I just push the issue and always get the right answer, it is optional. Have you written Charlie about this? Or was he at the race?

Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [peace242000] [ In reply to ]
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peace242000 wrote:
In defense of USAT for the racking penalties, the head official could not have made it more clear that this was a rule this year and that they would try to enforce it strictly. He spent like 5 minutes clarifying questions and telling all coaches to go back to their team and make sure everyone knew and to explain the racking procedure to them.
I fully agree that it was selectively enforced, and that's not right. One of our podium athletes lost about 30seconds a couple of years ago because he was trying to rack his bike correctly while the rest of the front guys had just thrown their's haphazardly into t2. Some type of rule needed to be made, but they should enforce it equally. And having two different racking rules for DL vs non-draft also seems a bit ridiculous.

Where in the rules books has this changed? It cannot be one officials opinion. And if it were not enforced equally, then, IMO, all the penalties for it should be thrown out!!!
As I said above, I usually cannot even get my bike seat under the bike racks, so it is not an option for me. Plus, IMO, racking my the bike seat is way less safe that using the brakes. I have also seen very small bikes trying to rack by the seat and all their wheels are off the ground and hitting the bikes around them.

Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [h2ofun] [ In reply to ]
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Writing down the rules seems to be a thing of the past. This includes the DL race, where there were several differences between literally every other DL race in the country/world and the one at Collegiate Nats. Collegiate Nats had special rules like no aero helmets without being specifically defined, just a general "I don't want anything with a tail that can hurt someone" and a rule that the University's name must be the main logo on the kit, which was not enforced. They also had an aero wheel rule adjustment that meant wheels we left at home would've been allowed, but this wasn't written anywhere. We were also told that any athlete who missed the meeting would be Dq'd, and this was not enforced. These rules were only mentioned at the day before briefing, making it hard, in my mind, to enforce them. Many kids showed up with their ITU kits, and according to the head referee the day before wouldn't be allowed to race, but ultimately were. I'm glad that these mostly weren't enforced, you can't announce 12 hours before the race what equipment, kits, etc is and isn't allowed.
Last edited by: peace242000: Apr 25, 17 14:24
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Re: USAT botches scoring at collegiate nationals [peace242000] [ In reply to ]
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peace242000 wrote:
Writing down the rules seems to be a thing of the past. This includes the DL race, where there were several differences between literally every other DL race in the country/world and the one at Collegiate Nats. Collegiate Nats had special rules like no aero helmets without being specifically defined, just a general "I don't want anything with a tail that can hurt someone" and a rule that the University's name must be the main logo on the kit, which was not enforced. They also had an aero wheel rule adjustment that meant wheels we left at home would've been allowed, but this wasn't written anywhere. We were also told that any athlete who missed the meeting would be Dq'd, and this was not enforced. These rules were only mentioned at the day before briefing, making it hard, in my mind, to enforce them. Many kids showed up with their ITU kits, and according to the head referee the day before wouldn't be allowed to race, but ultimately were. I'm glad that these mostly weren't enforced, you can't announce 12 hours before the race what equipment, kits, etc is and isn't allowed.

Wow, that is terrible!! And at a Nationals? Charlie has always made a big point a rule has to be written down, and clear, to be used and enforced. I wonder what is happening?

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