Is the athlete required to know the course? Yes
Is the athlete required to follow the instructions of race staff and volunteers? Yes


There is no single, universal correct answer. Sometimes there is a need to change the course last minute, as in the case of an accident. Sometimes the race director doesn't put out clear signage. Sometimes teenagers change signage around, and the race staff doesn't catch it in time. Sometimes a specific volunteer messes up and redirects athletes the wrong way. Sometimes, despite everything else being right, an athlete picks to wrong place to turn, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose.

As Einstein said: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." The only thing we can do as athletes is to understand the course the best we can. If we're being told something in the middle of the race that's different from what we understood, we need to decide whether to follow their instructions. In the end, depending on what we choose, we may be totally right or totally wrong. Such is life.

I was just talking to a friend about this since recently at a small local race a volunteer sent the race leader the wrong way. As you said, even if you know the course, how do you know you are not being diverted because of an accident or last minute course change.

You're right, you're not the only one to wonder about this. I've thought it too.

I'm one of those anal retentive rule followers and this situation would have my head exploding if it happened to me.

I have been lambasted here on ST several times over the years for reading, knowing and following the rules while others wade in with un-informed opinion on a particular topic. It used to really piss me off, but then I realized I had also given my (uninformed opinion several times)

I think it's great that you have posed this question, so that when any of us come across this situation, we've had some pre-thought about it (rather than having to make a snap decision at the time) and can go with the right, consensus, group response.

I think the right decision is to follow the marshalls directions. The course may have changed for some reason, as others have mentioned, so the answer is to do what you're told.

And lets not forget, it's just a race. Sure for the pros it can be a different issue since livelihood is at stake, but for us punters, it's a hobby. No-one dies and no-one gets hurt by following what the marshall makes you do. It might not be what we want, but life rarely is.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

It's really a no win: go off course and get a DQ, disobey an official and get a DQ.

I had this cost me a podium. The volunteer said to turn around at the second cone (should have said the two cones). The cones were so far apart that you couldn't see the next one. I turn at the second cone, and realize about 1/2mile later that something's off (the finish is too close, too soon). Just stepped to the side of the finish line, went over to the RD and DQ'd. Shit happens.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

that would have been really hard for me to do - to step away at the end. I admire your integrity though I'm not convinced it was required.

Sounds like the rules put us in a position to do what we think is the correct option - either listen or don't - so since you listened, I don't think you should have DQ'd yourself.

With that logic, I'd probably end up on here as part of a twitchunt if I got put in that situation.

I have done several races where the marshals have screwed up.

One time while following the lead motorbike in a 10k he just stopped. This was on a section of course which was an out-and-back with a turn-around through a break in the median. According to my watch it would have been a bit premature to turn around where the bike had stopped, so I continued, and found the correct turn a bit further down the road. The guy in 2nd place wasn't quite so well informed, so did turn around where the bike had stopped. As a result he finished just in front of me, but had the good grace to admit his mistake (although not really his fault) and DQed himself.

Another time in a tri with a multi-lap bike loop the marshal was telling me that I had another lap to complete before returning to transition, despite me knowing that I had done the required number. I chose to ignore him and continued to transition. Another competitor who would most likely have finished 3rd was in the same situation and went on to complete an extra bike lap, and was far from happy at the finish.

A separate tri had a half-iron and an olympic happening on the same course at the same time, with different bike loops and a longer out-and-back run. Again the volunteers were directing me the wrong way on the bike course, directions which I ignored because I knew were I was supposed to go.

Had I not been on the ball in these events I wouldn't have podiumed, so I can certainly see the validity in the statement of athletes must know the course, but in the face of conflicting information you need to be very clear on where you need to be going. Often in the heat of a race one's judgement is somewhat compromised and you are trying to make decisions without losing time.

These were fairly low-key events which hadn't been running for long where I wouldn't have expected the organisers to have everything running perfectly or for the volunteers to be particularly well trained, however at a bigger event I would put more faith in marshals/volunteers/signage.

Cheers, Rich

its a tough call. it reminds me of this story from 2011:
http://www.slowtwitch.com/..._in_Austin_2098.html

Andy Potts got an early Christmas gift courtesy of a boat crew offering errant directions to his competitors in the swim, and breezed to victory in the CapTex Triathlon in Austin, Texas.

Potts led from the start in the swim, as he typically does, and rounded a buoy only to hear an apparent swim official shout to Potts, and his competitors, that the buoy should be ignored. Potts instead ignored the official, and headed for home. The other swimmers heeded what turned out to be errant advice.

Accordingly, Potts emerged with a large lead as he left T2 ahead of Cameron Dye, Hunter Kemper, Filip Ospaly, Ben Collins and Matty Reed (who started despite suffering from a cold). But Potts gave a good chunk back through being led the wrong way out of transition, requiring him to backtrack.

what a cluster. I guess you're just sposed to roll with it.


(adding one more) .... but Hunter would disagree with me:


Kemper was irate. "I would have won the race," said Kemper. "I don't see how they can award prize money and series points the way it went down. We were all on course and heading for the yellow turnaround buoy when a large boat and a jet ski zoomed in front of us and told us we were to go off course and we stopped. By the time we got going again we'd lost almost 3 minutes to Andy. "

Tricky issue... You're required to both know the course, but follow official instructions... By the rule book, the safer bet is to follow the official, because ignoring the official is an automatic DQ, but if you go off course, as long a you resume the course from the point of the infraction, you can still finish (just with whatever loss of time the detour caused). I've gone off course in running races before, typically on confusing trail runs, where flagging tape has ripped, or where hooligans changed signage... Also, at a fun super sprint Du, with no pre-posted course maps, me and a training partner were leading the first run, and followed the verbal directions that we were given, missed a turn that we hadn't been told to make (and there was no marshall) and ended up running close to an extra mile (we quickly realized that we had gone way too far, and turned around, when we got back to the point we left the course, the volunteer marshall was now at their spot and yelled at us for going off course and directed us back on course, the race director quickly intervened and just sent us straight back to the tzone (since we had run nearly 4km, on a 2km run...). Miraculously we were still in the lead, albeit with a much smaller gap, but managed to end up 1-2 at the end of the race (for the second run, you can be damned sure we both made the right turn...).

I have made the judgement call in races to ignore marshalls when they don't look like they know what they're doing, and I know the course well... but generally I have encountered a few issues...

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Adam

Euro-Sports.ca/The Foodery Team member

Ditto.

You to person indicating direction: "Has the course changed?"

"Yes": follow the new directions.
"No": follow the original course.

If the course has changed, the volunteer/marshal will know that he/she should redirect you. If the course hasn't changed, then the volunteer/marshall is most likely incorrect: if they can't give you a reason, stick to the original plan.

Just a suggestion.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Depends. Its happened to me a few times. The first one an officer sent me and the guy following me one way and the rest of the field another way (they went the correct way). Turned out the way he sent us was a parallel road and had gravel rather than pavement so very similar distance. We spoke to the RD after and he did not DQ us as his volunteer directed us the wrong way and he felt the gravel road made "our" course harder.

Another time the lead police car turned at an intersection before he was suppose to and I yelled to him to follow me to the next intersection where the volunteers were and the proper course was.

Is the athlete required to follow the instructions of race staff and volunteers? Yes

I think this is only half right. IIRC- the rules state that in the context of knowing/ changing the course, the athlete is required to follow the instructions of race officials, who are the head ref, marshals, and judges, but not the average (yet ridiculously awesome) volunteers.

Now, applying that rule in the midst of a race, is more complicated. I'd still probably follow the instructions of a volunteer reasoning that they have more recent information that I (hopefully). If the result is a penalty,

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

But how often does this really happen?

If you race enough, the dilemma might come up sometime, but perhaps not. If it does, and you make the wrong decision, well, that's part of racing. Is it really that much different than other sports. It's certainly not unheard of for a ref in footie to blow a call that determines the result. But it's still the exception and not the rule.

I think the solution from a racer's perspective, is to know the course as best as you reasonably can and to try to make the best judgment call when the situation arises. Most of the time, it won't be a problem.

The greater solution is for race organizers to not rely on the "know the course" rule and have a clearly marked course and well trained volunteers.

Totally agree at the end of the day it's rare and not worth losing sleep over. All sports have some element of "judgement calls" that can turn the outcome of the event and sucks when it does.

And that's not to say that there shouldn't be an effort to address the potential dilemma.

I'm not sure any kind of rule change is in order. As I mentioned, seems like it's mostly up to the race organizer to put on a well organized race, which includes an unambigiously marked course and trained marshalls. And for those racing, I think the most they can do is try to know the course as much as reasonable and hope they make good decisions.

The take home of this is, if you know you are right you do not follow the marshal. Andy said that he was really proud of this win because he stuck his neck out. The other guys did not. He knew he was right, he risked a DQ had he been wrong. I am not saying Kemper shouldn't have been upset. But it should be noted that he had the choice - and elected not to - follow Andy.

(Oh and it wasn't 3 minutes and Hunter used a rode bike)

Sadly I think it happens a lot.

I mentioned 2 above. A few others:

A police officer not involved in a race blocked off a road off with his car because he was making an arrest. The 1'st 5 guys turned where he was blocking the road (they should have gone straight for another 50 yards or so and turned. The police man then moved his car to block the road we went down and the rest of the racers went the right way. (top 5 were DQ'd)

A volunteer blocked the proper way (a turn onto a tight path( for the first bunch of racers so we all had to go straight, open it for a few and blocked people going straight and then close it off again so the last group went straight. (race was "turned" into 2 races)

I watched a leader be directed by a police to turn the wrong way (he had a huge lead), when I got to the officer, he said go straight and I said the leader turned. He responded, I know, I'm going to get him in a minute... (the leader at the time came in 3'rd after running an extra 1/2 to 3/4 mile in a 5k)

A few people have mentioned trained volunteers or trained marshalls. I have volunteered for a few races and have always been assigned to marshall. There is no training. In every situation, the course has been premarked by the race director. We have been given flags and vests and stop signs for directing cars and told to stand at the marked intersection and direct traffic. If not enough volunteers can be found, low traffic intersections without turns will be left unmarshalled. Volunteers are doing the best they can out there, but they are not trained.

Pretty sure it is not legal for unauthorized people to attempt to control vehicular traffic as you were told to do.

Been there, been lectured by a (NJ) State Trooper.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I was marshalling a bike race in PA earlier this year where someone crashed and an ambulance had to be called. Before it arrived, an off-duty cop who was driving by stopped and administered first aid. Then a patrol car showed up with the ambulance. The other volunteer and I expected the on-duty cop to take over directing traffic around the ambulance or at least take the lead and give us instruction. Nope, unless you consider yelling "keep the cars clear of the ambulance!" to be instruction. That was all anyone said to us.

I think at the front of the race it happens reasonably often. Not something that would ever affect me, but I can think of three right off the bat where I was either there or was in the race when it happened.

Happyscientist mentioned the issue of trained volunteers and I'll echo his comment.

I showed up to volunteer for a sprint race and was asked to man the run aid station. So off I went.

I found a table in the back of a parking lot, with a tube of cups and some water jugs. I moved the table to the road actually on the race course. When the leader came up he asked me where the runaround was, I legitimately had no idea, I assumed it was further up the road over the hill. He told me that no it was somewhere near where we were. On the spot I took a trash can put it on the side of the road and said "here's the turnaround."

The race director never came by, there was no way to contact her - so that's what it was. There was no training, there was no providing me with a race map, nothing. Just - go help at the run aid station - where I found the table and a nice but unknowledgeable 14 year old boy.

I think this is the best solution. At the race I was at the misdirection was at the bottom of a 30+ MPH hill, still losing 30 seconds is better than being completely out of the race. Based on my experience I agree that volunteers are often not given much instruction.

Just to muddy the waters even more, it's possible the volunteer don't know the course has been changed, just that they where told to send people 'that way'.

Happened to me, in an olympic distance triathlon that was turned into a duathlon last minute. Course was shared with a sprint. I was doing the oly and came out of T1 with the leaders (would never happen after a swim..) and myself and one other guy were directed onto the sprint course by the marshall. It seemed like the wrong way to go, but an official on the course was waving us to turn right so we did. We looped around back over the start line then rejoined the course and did the full 40km.

Irony is, having studied my garmin file, if I took off the time I spent on the "extra" bit I'd have been within 20 seconds of the winner.. and I have never been on the podium before :-(

But my thoughts are that you HAVE to accept direction from the on course officials, they might know something you don't know.

Some years ago at a race just outside Toronto the RD made a change to the run course which he announced during the usual briefing before the race, done outside of the transition zone. I was, unfortunately, intimately involved with a port-a-potty at that moment and missed the gist of the announcement.

The race director had altered the turn around point.

All went well until we reached the turnaround marker, which was not marked as a turn around and was unmanned. Having done the race before, I and everyone around me continued on the course we knew from the previous year, looking for whatever clues about the course change we could find. After completing that loop, we were then directed to another out and back. End result two extra Ks. Those who guessed right did well, those who ignored the out and back, did fine, the rest, too bad. When I complained to the RD at a later date, I was told that the turnaround volunteer went missing for a while and that it was my fault for not knowing the course.

Needless to say, as well run and popular as the series is, I have never raced them again.