Everyone is running a RFID chip, why not space 2 sets of RFID mats spread 20-30m away from each other. If your distance to the person in front of you doesn't change appreciably between the 2 sets of mats than you aren't passing, you are drafting...
-Placing the mats in "sets" allows you to calculate both the relative and absolute speeds of the riders.

I thought about that and almost finished writing a post before realizing it wouldn't work. It would catch people passing despite best efforts to tweak the system to prevent it. And it would cost a bundle. We'd basically need to put two timing wires every few miles on the bike course. That's more timing wires than a typical timing vendor travels with to a race.

GoPro cameras on the heads of all the motorbike marshals and post them up here for public review, naming & shaming.

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Wow. That sure is new. I don't like it though. Penalties in triathlon should be view like penalties in football or fouls in basketball. More often than not, the penalty happens in the absence of malicious intent, but its still a foul. Take your medicine and move on. If you are still contending for a slot after the penalty is served, good on you and you should be allowed to contend.

Yes, I understand that view.

As a debrief on this I don't know if there was a single person this affected. The rolldowns were going really deep and I didn't sense a single instance where someone would have wanted a slot and was not allowed it because they got a drafting penalty.

(I hung around up to the end of Male 35-39 rolldown and I think up to that point there was 2-3 people in both gender's 30-34 who indicated an interest and didn't get a spot, but there were already 3 or 4 slots that were going to be re-allocated from younger age groups so I imagine anyone who wanted a slot got one)

Did that mean there was no drafting and the policy worked? I don't think so. While I can't say I witnessed persistent draft packs, I certainly witnessed multiple and repeated breaches of the draft rules. And it wasn't a lack of officials to my eye. I saw them all the time out there. It did seem there was a real lack of willpower to dish out a penalty. I could hear them warning guys ahead that they had to drop back etc. I don't know why there needs to be a warning. I was in a significantly competitive group of the race (and certainly the guys passing me and ahead of me were) that these guys knew the rule, they just didn't care or were willing to risk it.

This was my first big WTC race and it left me a bit disillusioned with the whole no drafting thing. For the first 10-20 km the rule is borderline unenforceable. Too many guys too close together. It felt like I spent most of the race either dropping back when getting passed or hammering it to pass someone within the rules. Maybe I need to get tactically better and basically hammer it for the first half an hour to force guys passing me to be really driving it and then I can just sit in at my goal power after that and if guys are coming up behind me they will be going fast enough I won't have to coast so much to drop back.

In any event, I'm not really enamoured with the whole WTC structure, so I don't necessarily prefer a race like this to a smaller one where you can space out more on the bike. Aside from having a deeper field and pros present, any other race I've done has been just as well organized and fun, but less crowded. Would I race Calgary 70.3 again? Yes, because it is a good date, close to home, well organized and a nice course. Never because it was a "real Ironman" or had a whole bunch of fast competitors.

Just my $0.02

Drafting in the sport is not a big problem. Look at the number of drafting penalties in the majority of races and you'll see it's a very low percentage.

It is a bigger issue when races are oversold which is what IM is typically. IM needs to fix it's races. But why should they when they sell-out so often? So, you pay to enter certain IM races then you should expect drafting to occur.

But good for those races that try to minimize it.

That may be but there was definitely a lot of draft marshalls out on the bike course, way more than last year. I have to wonder though, did they nail the entire 20 or 30 bike peleton that passed me on a flat / minor downhill around the 20k mark? It was so big & obvious it was disturbing. And then there was the dude passing on the right, hope he got caught.

It's low percentage because you can't get enough coverage to enforce.

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

[/quote] That may be but there was definitely a lot of draft marshalls out on the bike course, way more than last year. I have to wonder though, did they nail the entire 20 or 30 bike peleton that passed me on a flat / minor downhill around the 20k mark? It was so big & obvious it was disturbing. And then there was the dude passing on the right, hope he got caught.[/quote]





Don't know the answer, but the last time I did LP the field was smaller (2800 people) and that section was so packed that there was no way to break it up. I pulled 20 or so age groupers (1, 30-35 female) all the way to the first out and back. That was my point with smaller fields but that isn't going to happen. IM is what it is now for better or worse so after a dozen or so (couple on Kona) I choose to spend my money else where.

Congrats on LP it's a beautiful race!

Sorry should have been more clear, I raced Calgary yesterday. No fulls for me til next year.

Coverage means more officials. There is not an unlimited amount of USAT offcials available and USAT races pay for officials and sometimes their expenses to travel.

It really comes back to us, doesn't it? So maybe more of us need to become officials.

Some of us have. :)

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |