Not sure what you are referencing, but i scanned the article and didn't read anything that would be cheating or even strange.



Styrrell

I talked to John after the race. He recognized the konaby2008 written on my calf. Very nice guy, I was glad to hear about his race.

Thanks for posting the link to his blog.

Yes, this giy cheated. He:

1. Intentionally dunked and hit people on the swim.

2. Intentionally drafted on the bike.

3. Seems very proud of 1&2.

I figured (hoped) he was joking about smacking people around in the swim, and as for drafting, he indicated that he got a draft even at the legal 3 metres, which is within the rules, no?

I don't think he was joking at all about the swim. As I understood the report, even though he tried to maintain the legal 3 (still with a draft), he was not able to the entire time and was penalized. I have mixed feelings about his pride in a new bike PR given these circumstances. On the other hand, he took a very strategic approach to the race and maybe that's what it's all about.

You may not know this but even riding legal distance you get a draft.

If conditions are right it can be up to 20 watts.

The guy said he rode legal.

Stuff happens in the swim and people get swum over. Big deal.

where do you get "intentionally" from?? Very few athletes will intentionally dunk a lapped swimmer, it just slows you down. On the bike he stayed the legal distance from the rider in front, except for when he let his concentration lapse, and he got dinged for it. Not the same as cheating.

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Gotta agree. In a perfect world there would be 200 people on closed roads. In real life where there are 1500ish people on the road, if all you're getting is a legal draft you're being pretty sportsmanlike.

As for the swim, I think he's exaggerating a bit, but it's physical. There are a lot of hands and feet out there and some of them are bound to make contact (another reason breaststroke should be illegal). Just pray that it isn't with your groin (sorry Jonas).

Nope, probably wasn't joking about the swim, but you can't always see the slower swimmers ahead of you until you are literally on top of them. I don't think it was intentional.

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Letting your 'concentration lapse' and gaining an advantage IS cheating, no matter which way you slice it.

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Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

He violated a rule, and served the penalty. I'm not saying what he did was right (as an aside, I know I have never gotten myself into that situation, and I don't know how your concentration lapses like that, but then I've never done an IM, esp not in the pro field) but to me there is nothing worse than being labelled a cheater.

Maybe my definition of cheating is somewhat harsher than yours. To me, cheating means that you knowingly and willfully violate the rules to gain an advantage, and always results in a DQ if detected by the officials (and the officials follow the rule book).

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You're right... I agree with you. However, this dude states clearly that for quite some distance he was in a pack and was drafting, then he finally got caught while he was drafting again in a headwind.

I'm just really ticked off because a good friend was out there racing him cleanly and after reading this it gets me fired up. I'm super pumped my buddy could destroy this dude and do it cleanly while this guy cheated.

{quote} "I think we represented spots 6-20 ish. this group was drafting, sadly. At times the group slowed down because no one wanted to go to the front and work. It was straight uproad cycling racing. I was thankful for the break and used it to pull myself together for a few miles." {/quote}

That's gay in my books and cheating in all the rule books. Just because others were doing it, doesn't mean it's OK... it means the others were cheating as well.

Trev

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Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

[reply]You may not know this but even riding legal distance you get a draft.

If conditions are right it can be up to 20 watts.

The guy said he rode legal.

Stuff happens in the swim and people get swum over. Big deal.[/reply]

"at mile 107 the ref nailed me for drafting. I was. I said, I was sorry and thank you."

that doesn't sound like he rode legal the whole way.

Cheating involves a nefarious intent and some advance planning to intentionally violate rules and get away with it. A mistake is not cheating, it's a foul. Just like any other sport. In basketball, do we call a guy who "violates a rule" by bumping a shooter a "cheat"? No -- it's just a foul.

On the other hand, a baseball player who corks a bat is a cheat, because that act involves a nefarious intent to intentionally violate a rule and get away with it.

Drafting in an IM is only cheating when it rises to the level of an intentional, continuing effort to gain an advantage and get away with it. A mistake is just a foul.

Hi Cathy,

It doesn't say that he intentionally did it. I read the sentence as a guy who was trying his damndest to keep up with the other guy, and there was some unintentional "collateral damage". If you are swimming twice as fast as the back markers, there is no way you see them until you are right on top of them, so you get that result.

I know this from experience, as I've done the exact same thing, never on purpose. I get no joy from making other folks lives difficult. When possible, always tried to seek out the person(s) to apologise after the race. I can do that in the small local races where I know all of the competitors.

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So this only sounds like a lapse in concentration to you? Sounds like he's corking his bat for the run to me. I think you would have to agree.

{quote} "I think we represented spots 6-20 ish. this group was drafting, sadly. At times the group slowed down because no one wanted to go to the front and work. It was straight uproad cycling racing. I was thankful for the break and used it to pull myself together for a few miles." {/quote}



Trev

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Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

"Drafting in an IM is only cheating when it rises to the level of an intentional, continuing effort to gain an advantage and get away with it."

I'm thinking the paragraph that Triposer just posted qualifies as intentional cheating...at least he felt badly about it.

~Matt

I read it just the opposite.

clm

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

I think cheating, by definition, implies an intent to gain an unfair advantage. Riders may draft for numerous reasons -- a lapse in concentration, ignorance of the rules, physical inability to pass within the required time limit, an overly congested course, error in judging distance between bikes, getting caught up in the moment (or in a pack) -- all of which, while infractions that may merit a penalty, are not cheating.

{quote} "I think we represented spots 6-20 ish. this group was drafting, sadly. At times the group slowed down because no one wanted to go to the front and work. It was straight uproad cycling racing. I was thankful for the break and used it to pull myself together for a few miles." {/quote}

Take the above quote in the context that you can get a legal draft. i.e. the required distance behind the rider in front. The pace slowed, so he got a break.

All I know is what this guy wrote in his blog. I wasn't there. I also know that some IM races are draft-fests, for all I know he was one of the participants. But without evidence, over and above reading between the lines in his blog, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt, as I take the starting position that everyone is honest and wants to hold their head high at the end of the day. My opinion will change for the worse based on my observations.

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Still, I wouldn't call it cheating. What were his options? Go off the front and pull the pack with him, to his detriment? Or drop off the back? Sometimes, when you get stuck in the pack, it's extremely difficult to get out of it, especially if the pack's large.

He stayed with the pack and got a four minute penalty, which probably more than offsets the advantage he gained by being in a pack. I fail to see how he got an unfair advantage.

That's a good way of looking at it. I agree with you.

Trev

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Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

Isn't at least part of the problem here that the guy wrote a blog that was, shall we say, braggadocious. I mean, if you're going to toot your own horn like that, you better have a pretty clean race. I, for one, get tired of reading "race reports" that are nothing more than self-congradulatory pats on the back. As I said the other day in a post, if you have a great race, shut up and let other people do the bragging for you. Otherwise, it's meaningless. Think of the great pros that you admire out there. How many of them write this kind of crap? They don't. They report facts about their race. Not about how great they were.

[reply]Still, I wouldn't call it cheating. What were his options? Go off the front and pull the pack with him, to his detriment? [/reply]

how would riding while not drafting be to his detriment? Isn't that they way we should be riding during a tri? just asking for further clarification.

Yup. A friend of mine had a saying. "if you lose, say little. if you win, say even less"

Any athlete's race report will be self-centred though. That is their only point of view during the race. Some folks are better at writing than others. (i class myself in with the "others").

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Agreed. But it's different to report strategy, cadence, hr, problems, interesting events that happened during the race, than to say something like, "I was smokin' . . . most awesome race of my life . . . etc". You'd never hear Gordo, Legh, DeBoom talk like that (I don't think).

What, that he meant to physically assault the AG'ers? I don't believe that. I do know that in a crowded swim, it is really easy to accidentally smack the back of someone's head with the back of your hand. If the conditions are choppy, my arm recovery tends to be more forceful, so if I do make contact it will tend to hurt.

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SOmetimes it's difficult to extricate yourself from a pack without either significantly slowing down or speeding up. And even though that's what we should still do anyway, failing to do so doesn't necessarily mean it's cheating. More often than not, it's simply a rule infraction that merits a penalty. But the world is so black and white for me to call it cheating.

Need any more clarification?

I think this sentence "At times the group slowed down because no one wanted to go to the front and work." indicates that he slowed down with the group when he could have just as easily held the same pace and passed the group. However no one wanted everyone drafting off of them so no one did this.

I agree with your assesment that getting caught in a group is a pain in the ass and sometimes difficult to get out of. However it sounds, at least in this case, that the drafting action was intentional. Anytime you're adjusting your speed to "stay with the group" seems like a draft pack.

~Matt

Yes, the drafting was intentional, in that he rode at the limits of what the rules allow. If you are at those limits (i.e. not in volation of the rules) you can still get a draft.

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Somebody singled this guy out on the gordo world message board as well. I think that's crap personally. I've never met John, but I read his blog and he raced and trained hard. He's also new to the front end of these races and the dynamics seem to be very different up there. I can't really say since I've never been involved in that part of an IM but it seems like he is catching shit for no reason.



I'll also say that when guys at the front end put out race reports that its a tremendous contribution to our sport and if they are going to get flamed less of them will do it...oh wait, very few do it as is. Maybe there is a reason.

Or just smart racing.

You have to accept if you are doing any of the big IM races that you will be riding (at some stage) in close proximity to other riders. It's a result of having 1800 to 2600 riders out on a course. The smart thing to do is to find a group and ride legal. Sure it's drafting but those are the rules, they allow drafting. In Hawaii it was 5m front to rear. If you dont like the rules dont do the race. Adjusting your speed to stay with the pack may be the best thing for your race. Always ride legal distance and race smart.

oh.. so since he's new to the 'front end', he should be allowed to get away with more than other people. That makes a lot of sense. I see it clearly now.

Honestly, I don't get people sometimes... this dude admits to speeding up and slowing down so he can benefit from a pack so he can take a break during a non-drafting race and people come to his defense that it's OK for him to do this... I honestly can't grasp what is going through people's heads sometimes.

Why would someone take the side of someone who has admitted to not racing inside of the rules? I just don't get it. Remember, this type of person is going to be the first person you complain about when they beat you.

Trev

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Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

I've taken the liberty of copying John Hirsch's clarification from Gordo's forum.http://www.coachgordo.com/...x.php?showtopic=5592

I hope he doesn't mind.

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Trev where was the last IM race you did?

I think a RR can say "I raced the best race of my life" without being a braggart. There is a difference between being proud of a great race and shoving someone's face in it. It's kinda like porn "you know it when you see it".

But he didn't get away with it, did he? He was penalized four minutes.

I thought it was a refreshing race report in that he was honest about what went on out there, including his drafting. He didn't brag about it. Rather, it was very clear that he thought that aspect was unfortunate. Don't you think that the mere fact that he was forthright about it indicates that he wasn't cheating? I guess the world really is that black and white for you.

Hawaii, before that Canada. Why ?



Trev

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Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

OK...sorry guys... I didn't want to be part of a huge fight... I just got fired up..... maybe it's just the trend with the overcrowded conditions or the flat course making it hard to stay legal...

...also, I had a good friend in the race who was frustrated by the packs and I was frustrated for him.

...I will give this dude the benefit of the doubt .... can we call a truce ?

Trev

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Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

He broke the rules and he got caught. As he said:

at mile 107 the ref nailed me for drafting. I was. I said, I was sorry and thank you. I had my head down as we churned the final miles into a strong head wind and I had let the gap between me and the rider infront shrink. It meant 4 minutes in the penalty box, aka the sin bin, but it was a fair call.

I wonder if he had his "head down" at any other time during the ride. If he had not got caught would he have ever mentioned in his report of having his head down while drafting?

It sounds to me like this guy held on to the wheel in front of him a little too much. We all see it at races and most of us deny ever doing it. Regardless, there is no pride in a bike split pr when you have to draft to get it.

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Fortitudine Vincimus

Dude, I understand. I get frustrated by them too, in my limited experience with the big races.

BTW, this ain't a fight. You want to see a fight, check out the Lavender Room Iraq / Cheney threads. Its like watching a train wreck.

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Agreed based on the assumption that he was staying legal off the rear.

Seems to me that it would not smart racing to adjust your speed to a level that was below a speed you could hold by yourself. Of course the only reason you would do that is if you are gaining more of an advantage off of the draft than you could hold on your own. So the only time you would slow with the pack is that fine line where the slowing is less than what you are gaining off of the "legal draft".

Seems a very small margin and one that would be very hard to hold and prove as a benefit and "Smart raceing".

OTOH drafting will get larger benefits and thus make more sense to slow with the pack.

Either way conjecture on both ends. The article just came across to me as "I was drafting on purpose" rather than "I was keeping legal drafting distance and everyone else was drafting"

~Matt

I left a message for him there explaining I found his article to sound more like he was purposefully drafting rather than he was not. Hard to understand why that would be crap. If he meant it another way maybe he should clarify that.

If someone rights something, especially at the front, that sounds like he/she cheated don't ya think someone should say something? If he didn't then he can clarify and that's that. If he did cheat, then that's whats crap.

~Matt

I dont think he was allowed to get away with more than other people. I'm also not condoning drafting. One, he got caught and got a penalty. Two, packs form all over the place. Especially when you have over 2000 riders on the course. (tangent) Maybe the solution is for IMNA not have ridiculously large fields. I dont know. But singling this guy out and busting his balls certainly isnt.

I dont think I'll be complaining about anybody who goes sub 9:30 in an IM because they are much faster than me and it's not because they got caught in a pack.

>>SWIM:
I did not attack people intentionally. This problem was raised with the RD at the pro meeting and in the past they had a seperate pro lane for us for the second lap. I added that part to show that it was a problem and they need to go back to the old way to avoid this. I felt bad for the people we ran into and over. <<

Glad he clarified this part. Adding the sentence about the separate pro lane which wasn't there this year makes it read a lot different.

clm

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clm
Nashville, TN
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Out of curiosity, do you know the dynamics of the pack? (Serious question, I don't know your background)

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"do you know the dynamics of the pack?"

Dynamics of THAT pack as in the pack in the race or the dynamics of any pack?

Certainly don't have any clue as far as the pack in the race and very little outside of following others on groups rides etc. Certainly not an expert.

Only thing I'm really aware of is I personally feel little to no advantage at "draft legal" distance and certainly not enough to warrent slowing down to stay in it. I suspect that as with most things as you become more accomplished the "small things" matter more.

Again a small margin and it would seem to me it would take alot of "energy" and effort to constantly be correcting to stay within that margin. Particulalry when a fairly large and dynamic group is involved.

~Matt

This makes Justin Daerr's performance that much more impressive! He would have been in no man's land--in front of the wpro and top AGers but behind the mpro due to the 15 min staggered start.

Just wondering, really by question is about any pack. The way that a pack works in a "draft-free" race is that everyone is still riding pretty hard. The benefits of drafting are considerably lower than if you are in a road race, and if you get a crosswind the benefits are completely eliminated. Ignore the "stagger rule" from last years Kona. As a result, it is really hard to actually attack the group, since everyone is riding on the limit. At least, one can't attack a la a road race, where the attacker might be going 10 - 15 km/h faster than the group.

In the triathlon scenario, if the pace slows and someone wants to "attack" the group, then typically what really happens is that the attacker just kind of rolls to to front, and everyone else will then lift the pace. The attacker never gets any separation, which is key to making the attack work. (I am excluding the top cyclists from this scenario, Stadler et al are in fact capable of doing this since their level is higher than the rest of the bunch.

So all that happens is the pace gets faster again, but this time it is the hapless attacker with his face in the wind and act as the carrot. Everyone else gets whatever benefit they can from the draft (legally of course, no one in this pack rides inside the draft zone), and saves their legs for the run. This might be fine if you are only going for your best time possible. But the pros are chasing the place, not the time, so any action that benefits their competitors actually hurts themselves.

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Um, first off, WOW. I never thought anything I wrote on that site would get read let alone picked over by people like it was a legal document. I am kind of shocked.

Let me add some context. First off, until today my site got very little traffic. Most of it was from non-tri folks and I wrote for them mostly. My goal was to give an interesting and somewhat brutal account of ironman, both training and racing. I thought the pain and suffering of ironman could relate to a larger group of readers, so much of my posts are geared to that, to the human drama that people who don't swim bike or run can relate to. Also most of my readers are friends and family of mine. I think this lead to a lot of assumptions that were not correct.

First off, I never meant to hurt anyone on the swim. I felt really bad about the way the swim played out at the end. I felt bad that I ran over at least one person, and bumped several others. I tried really hard to avoid people when I could see them. But when you are swimming full on, and not sighting b/c you are on someones feet and you come up on a BOP swimming breast stroking or simply resting, sometimes you can't help but hit them. Also I wear glasses, and so my sight isn't great to start with. As I posted on GW, I also mentioned that this problem was avoidable and we told the RD at the meeting how to avoid it and they didn't do anything. I would never hurt a person intentionally. Again, the tone of the post was meant to explain to non-tri folks how physical the swim is in ironman, NOT to be proud of the fact that I might have clocked a slower swimmer.

Let me also make clear that for the first 90 miles or so I was NEVER drafting within the 3 bike lengths. I was either solo, infront or off the back 3 bike length the whole ride until I ended up with the large group. I tried often to stay back 3 bike lengths of the larger group. For almost all of the time I was legal. BUT when I drifted back of the rider in front of me, often someone came around me. In the end, I was DYING, even more than normal b/c I was really putting in a big effort on the bike, and yeah, my head dropped and I drifted into the 3 bike length zone, and I got nailed. I was happy I got nailed, b/c I think its important to give out penalties when people are drafting I was also happy b/c I didn't want the other guys to get away with it. It is a little to easy to sit here a few days later and pick apart things that happened after 5 hours of hard racing and for other to say what my "intent" was. To be honest, when you are that deep intent isn't something you can form. I was simply riding. My intent was to push over the pedels, I couldn't form complete sentences, let alone full thoughts. At that point, things like intent, or doing math, or other high end brain activity is pretty much out the window. Its more about surival. I had my head down and buried I was simply churning into the last part of the course. (side note: only on the internet can you get 1000s of words hair spliting between a "foul" and "cheating").

As for the personal attacks, you don't know me, and its way too easy to type something hurtful. But do you think it really doesn't hurt my feelings? Its sad that people feel they can blast people like that. If you do that, you should really think about what effect it might have on the person you are blasting and what it says about you, that you do it.

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Dude, from what I know about you, you have style. You made mistakes, admitted them, and were happy to put them right. I have no idea what its like to just be out there for 140.6, let alone racing it. Not to mention taking a big gamble with your life, putting your "regular" career on hold so that my might make a few bucks racing, it takes a lot of guts that I think people forget.

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Thanks for the clarification.

Honestly, to me, your original writing on your site sounded as if you were intentionally drafting a good deal.

Not meant, at least from me, as a personal attack.

Also from your writings it does sound like alot of folks WERE drafting up there. Maybe I read that wrong as well. It was very hard to figure out if you joined them or stayed away.

~Matt

I can certainly see your point. What I'm wondering is if indeed everyone is riding legal, which woulc be single file not a big pack how much of a benefit is there? And is it enough that a sklightly faster biker in front will have "less fresh legs" than the slightly slower biker behind.

I can honestly say that riding legal in fairly controlled situations I can feel next to nothing under good conditions. Maybe I simply don't notice the difference and maybe I'm not near good enough to exploit it, but for me the simply natural "ups and downs" of the race override anything I might gain from a "legal draft".

~Matt

Because I don't know. What is the rule? No drafting or you must stay 3 meters back.

Not that I've ever been there, but there is a significant legal draft amongst people at the front end. Read some of Gordo's reports later on in his career. He goes into this in one or two of his RR's.

It's a distance of 3 meters not no drafting. Apparently if you're fast enough there is still a significant advantage at 3 meters...I don't have to worry about that though.

~Matt

Warning to all those who swim super fast and pay no attention to who you may be running over!

I'm an above average swimmer (and fast when I want) but I don't always go all out on the swim (what's 5 minutes gonna do for you really?). However, if you (meaning fast swimming dude) aren't paying attention to who is ahead of you and you swim over me without any regard for my safety or others that I witness, I will, if pissed off enough, do the following:

1) Quickly compose myself,
2) Swim as fast as humanly possible to catch you,
3) Swim over the top of you!

Accidents happen but there is no excuse for being completely obnoxious and swimming without any regard for fellow competitors.

I think there is a lot of variables in that equation!

I think that someone swiming at 55:00 minute pace running into someone treading water is going to make for a pretty collision. Throw it some chop and/or muddy water and it gets hard to see people until it's too late.

I'm not saying it was right, but I could understand a pro swimming 'over the top' of me and not hanging around to apologise. I think everyone accepts the fact that the start of a mass start is a bit of a meat grinder and will accept the give and take with good grace.

There is a big difference between doing your best and accidently collecting someone and simply not caring if you do...

Without evidence to the contrary, maybe the guy should get the benefit of the doubt. However with that said I'm a big believer in Karma... and if your ability to swim fast allows you to exact cosmic retribution on an obnoxious poseur thus becoming the means of said divine retribution... I say rock on!

From what I read in this, it sounds to me like normal pack dynamics. It's all so annoying when it happens, but it seems to happen every IM I do. The only exception I remember was IMC, beacuse of the hills I uess.

It's just so annoying. If you try to get away, they are on your wheel. I remember at IMOZ I dragged a group for like 30k before I gave up and sunk back into the back.

You have to ride smart, and try to ride legal as you can. There is a such a huge benefit from being in a group, but they are impossible to get away without frying yourself.

In the end, it just sounded like regular FOP riding. i usually ride 4:55 to 5:05, and this is just standard dynamics. You need to be able to ride like 4:30 to get away.

Having read his "race" report, I have noted the following:

- I hope he was exagerrating / joking about his swimming expolits ,as we are all aware of what takes place in the "washing machine" of a mass swim.

- He was riding " dishonestly" , not maximizing intelligent riding or any other pseudonyms.

- If he is PROUD of his PB he obviously has deep self-esteem issues.

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