It may turn out there IS no story other than what's been reported but I would want to find out and the first person I would ask is Jensen, would love to hear from him.//

I have no doubt what so ever that they either talked to him, or his viewpoint was accounted for. Hell, he may have even been the one to file the protest? But I'm sure he had no clue what the real story was until others explained what happened. He could have just as easily thought that he went off course and went too long somewhere. They were all following vehicles, so how do you know it was yours that was right or wrong?

How do you know that they were all following vehicles? Usually there is a lead vehicle and from watching the live feed it appears there is. It also appears that at one point it shows Jensen behind it and then he repasses Terenzo so the lead vehicle itself wasn't leading the race. The commentary also seems to indicate that they were surprised and confused by this. The fact that the coverage focused mostly on the leaders would seem to indicate that the leaders had media coverage motos. There might have been a roaming officials as well, but I can't assume Terenzo and that off-course group had an actual vehicle directing them. It appears from the live feed that Reed and Gambles knew something was up as well as they look confused at one point. Jensen was obviously flustered and wasted a lot of energy and aeroness in trying to communicate with what appeared to be media motos. I feel most badly for Jensen in this situation as he was obviously on tilt regarding the whole situation.

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I don't know if there was a lead vehicle, I don't know a bunch of details obviously, that's why I'm asking questions. The group behind these 5 followed the right course. I would love the know the details during the race and how things went down afterwards as terenzo didn't know for 2 hours post race.

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I *heart* weak, dumb ass people...

How do you know that they were all following vehicles? //

I dont, i just made assumptions on what was reported. First off there was most likely a lead vehicle, so Jensen was following one. And in the reporting it was mentioned that there were at least media vehicles, and probably a marshall too with the chase group, that would make perfect sense. So one would assume that if athletes went off course, they did not do so when vehicles went a different way. I have been in this exact spot many, many times, and i too have followed race vehicles off course. And if the course is not marked at all, like it sounds like this one was not, then of course you would follow the vehicles. Or in some cases you go off course and the vehicles follow you, either way it appears you are going the right way because no one is telling you different.

So my point with Jensen was that he really could not know for sure what had happened, he could just as easily have been led off course by his vehicle, I have had that happen to me too while leading races..Not uncommon at all in the old days, and unfortunately not that uncommon 30n years later either.

I agree with you that Jensen could maybe know that he didn't follow the proper course. What I guess I don't understand is how Terenzo and crew didn't know something was a miss as Jensen was clearly yelling at Terenzo when he caught back up. It seemed like Terenzo had no response.

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What I guess I don't understand is how Terenzo and crew didn't know something was a miss as Jensen was clearly yelling at Terenzo when he caught back up. It seemed like Terenzo had no response. //

Once again, put yourselves in their positions. How would Terenzo know that he and others went off course and not that Jensen maybe went off too long somewhere? Please everyone, remember at this point no one knows anything, just that something is amiss. Jensen is yelling at them, but for all he knows, he is the one that could have gone too far somewhere. It all gets sorted out much later, so nothing for the guys to do except to keep racing and sort it out later...

I may be out of the loop on this but I assume the little out-and-back is where things wen't awry? If so then there are couple of factors here that I think are reasonable to assume:

1) Although, Jensen had not raced in a long time, I think there was a reasonable thought in his mind he might be in the lead or make an effort to do so. Likely he would have spent more time going over course maps, doing recon etc. He should be familiar and confident with the course.


2) Jensen would have no doubt doing the little out and back section, hopefully at the end of the out-and-back it would have been clear about a couple of things:
a) He made an easily identifiable 180 degree turn. That is the type of landmark as an off the front cyclist you are on the lookout for
b) He never saw those group of guys going the other way as he was headed out of the out-and-back

Given those factors I would like to think Jensen knew the guys cut the course. Like you said, it would be nice to hear from the racers. We might never hear anything.

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I'm pretty sure Jensen knew the other guys cut the cource - and that he was on course. I completely agree with you on that topic Thomas Gerlach
Jensen was in front from km. 15, and he knew that (according to a facebook-post by himself)

In the same post he states: "Der skal nok komme noget, men lige nu er det ikke det rigtige tidspunkt at snakke om det.".
Translated: "You will hear something about it later on (about what happened on the bike cource), but right now it's not the right time to talk about it".

In the sprint finish with Aernouts he pulled/tore a muscle, and he looked like a pretty wasted guy when he crossed the finish line. Maybe he was to wasted to discuss anything at that point - maybe he just had decided not to discuss it.
When it comes to Jensen's price money, the difference between a disqualification of the 5 guys and a 4 min penalty, means $14.000 (difference between a 3rd place and a 5th place)


1st – $65,000, 2nd – $35,000, 3rd – $20,000, 4th – $9,000, 5th – $6,000, 6th – $5,000, 7th– $4,000, 8th – $3,000, 9th – $2,000, 10th – $1,000.

Check out the video-stream from the event.
http://live.challenge-dubai.com/


After 1:44:00 Jensen turns right in a roundabout. That is exactly the roundabout where the 5 guys made the wrong u-turn.
To me it looks like Jensen is not 100% confident in which direction he should go. But in the end he turns right - the next group don't.


Furthermore I notice, that Jensen has no car in front, helping him out with the direction.

Furthermore I notice, that Jensen has no car in front, helping him out with the direction. //

Well obviously there was some vehicle with him or you would not be watching it on the tube. And once he makes a turn that he is unsure about and his follow vehicle says nothing to the contrary, he would feel he made the right choice. And this is the same exact scenario that happened with the follow group too it appears. They make a turn with their entourage, and no one says anything is amiss, and there were no other markings or signs to say otherwise, you just keep going.


It was a shitty situation all the way around, but completely caused by course markers being absent. This is all on the RD at this point, so they stood up and took some responsibility for it, they could have gone further. What should happen in all races, but especially in huge big money ones, is the roads should be chalked, there should be cones angling the direction of the turn, a sign ahead of the turn with an arrow pointing the direction, and a volunteer right there to point the right direction. Having these 4 redundant markings would insure that no matter if 3 of them went away, the last one would still give folks some direction. Having non of these present is just a recipe for disaster. You could have the volunteer late, the wind blow the signs, a car run over the cones, but you would still have chalked roads to steer you. This was a rookie mistake by an organization that should know better, but obviously not.


In my day of race directing i called it the one cone theory. You think of all the things you have to do to put on a big successful event, and you do it all. Then the placement of one cone could ruin it all. And you have left it up to kid volunteers sometimes to place those cones. There was a famous Wildflower race where Terry did not have the turnaround cone on the run, the aid station that was supposed to be there just did not show up, and the chalk markings on the road were from the year before and too faded for anyone to see, unless you were right on top of them with your face 6 inches away. We talked after the race and i told him what i had done in this situation, and he did the right thing. Added over 20 grand to the prize purse and figured out how much people went off course, and gave away doubled up places and money. This is what these guys should have done, they still could with some more thought and my template of how you handle these situations..

Yes, I think it appropriate for Challenge to pay out as you suggest. The big beneficiaries there would be Reed (extra $30k), Aernouts (extra $26k), Jensen (extra $14k), and Llanos (extra $4k). Six more guys would get between $1k and $3k extra.

It would add up to an extra $87,000 in prize money, or ~30% of the total purse.

The biggest complication is if Reed is awarded first place money, is he also eligible to win the million if he wins Oman and Bahrain? It definitely adds greater likelihood that the prince will have to pay out that million.

The rumour locally is that they have double paid certain positions.

On that roundabout there was a police car and two cones blocking the wrong turn (you can see them at 1:44).

I'm not bothered either way (PB for me in windy conditions) but I think the course was pretty well marked.

I drove it afterwards with my son collecting water bottles :D and we were able to follow the "blown over" signs.

Is this the police car you're referring to at 1:44? If so, it's only stopping someone from turning left into the roundabout. It doesn't suggest that you shouldn't enter the roundabout, continue 360 degrees, and come back out in the other direction.



These are the cones that Jensen sees. They "sort of" suggest not going left, but 6-8 cones across both lanes of the roundabout would make it much more clear. The athletes have maybe 4 seconds to make that decision?


Here's him sitting up looking confused. This is the last frame before the camera cuts away. We can presume he went right, but there's no footage showing that.

I think the real question, and what you need to tell us, is was it Herbert on the media motorbike that took the wrong turn? :-)

From Jensen's race-report
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As most of you probably know by now there was an incident during the bike leg where 5 athletes took a wrong turn in a roundabout and therefore missed approximately 2.5 km of the course. It was about 50km in to the ride and my lead at that time was about 90 seconds. Obviously this brought a lot of confusion in my head when I caught back up to back of this group at about 65km. The rest of the ride was very emotional, as I was upset by what had happened and wanted to make sure that the referees knew something was wrong and took notice of their names.
I managed to catch back up to everyone but Terenzo Bozzone who then reached T2 just ahead of me. My ride was 2.02.43 for the full 90km. Avg pace was sligthly under 330w. In the youtube video below you can see me approaching the roundabout where the other guys made their wrong turn. I was also a bit confused as I approached the roundabout and had to get out of the aeroposition to make sure I took the right exit (1st exit to the right). I know the athletes who did the wrong turn didn't do so on purpose. I have great respect for every single one of them as persons and athletes and know they would never do anything like this intentionally. It is a very unfortunate situation in a race with so much at stake.
--

Classy write up

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Yup.

We can't ever know what the extra bike km and that effort to retake the leaders did to Jensen's run; as people have suggested the attempt to correct for the "missing" portion of the bike doesn't take that into account at all. Big shame for him, but a classy reaction.

I had a similar (but on an entirely different level!!!) experience doing an Oly race once which was ran on the same course as a Sprint race, on the same day. The swim was cancelled and it became a duathlon, which mucked up the timing between the two distances and there were athletes from both races out on the bike course at the same time, a bit chaotic. Me and this other guy were amongst the first out onto the bike from the Oly race and we were mistaken for Sprint guys, and at the point where the two courses diverged we were routed onto the wrong course. This isn't failing to study the course, there were marshals stood in the road waving at us to turn right!! The net effect was that we spent 12m58s circling around back over the start line before rejoining the race where we left. Gutted, because if I knock this time off my total I would have been within spitting distance of the winner ~20s, and with fresher legs. Would have been my first podium :-(

I still had not seen the leaders at that point. I was rolling up from behind.

Herbert: Are you working on any further information on this story or do I just need to drop it and move on with life?

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I *heart* weak, dumb ass people...

An editorial will be coming. But not in the next days, we first want to see how it all shakes out. And hear out the various sides.

We all have opinions about what happened, without necessarily knowing all the facts, and how the situation could have been handled. Ultimately, I would like to know the opinion of the people who were mostly affected by the mishap, and to me that means Tim Reed and the other racers who had a legitimate shot at the lead. If they were happy with the resolution then that would clear any doubt I may have. It would be great if your piece could include that angle.