I am surprised so many people have a problem with this. It is what I would call "racing". Wouldn't you want to use everything to your advantage. To me it looks like they were both swimming all out otherwise I didnt see Gomez attempt to accelerate away from him. I have been in the same position were I am swimming next to someone and for some reason the two people are like magnets and tend to keep coming back together until one person makes a move out to get in front. I also have climbed a set of stairs after a hard swim and had trouble going in a straight line. I dont see this "tatic" any differently then someone who sits on the wheel of another person (in draft legal events) and does no work. The entire race is tatics and I think this is personally fine. To each his own.


I am clueless as to your perspective, but having watched the clip several times now, Wiltshire looks like he got his swim technique from the NBA, specifically the power forward position with emphasis in rebounding and boxing out. Seriously, I've never seen so much bodying up except on a basketball court. With 15-30 feet of clear water to his left and the frigging draft line where the smart money swims, there is no rational reason in the world for Wilt the Stilt to be laying into Gomez. If someone had persisted in being so obnoxious to me in an IM swim, I would have decked him, regardless of the other guy's size. In an ITU swim with 60-70 swimmers tops, there is absolutely no excuse.

I'm not a particular fan of Gomez or the Brownlees as I am not a particular fan of ITU racing in general. However, if it was American pulling that kind of crap, I'd be shouting from the rooftops to get him off the circuit for a while until he got his priorities straightened out. Impeding significant competitors from other teams is not good sportsmanship under any circumstances. Anyone who thinks it is within the rules probably doesn't have a very good moral base for the remaining aspects of their lives.

A fyi, the word is tactic by the way.

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Behold the turtle! He makes progess only when he sticks his neck out. (James Bryant Conant)
GET OFF THE F*%KING WALL!!!!!!! (Doug Stern)
Brevity is the soul of wit. (William Shakespeare)

I'm not a Gomez fan. I actually happen to be a fan of Alistair (after Matty Reed and Andy Potts, of course). :)

After watching the video? I can't believe people are saying it was unintentional. It looks pretty obvious.

I won't bother commenting on what sanctions should be on whom, but in that video, it's pretty clear what Wiltedman was doing.

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keep it simple , keep it real .
--Brett Sutton

But i dont really know that much about bikes. I just sit on em and do as i am told. peddle. hard and fast.
--Chrissie Wellington

I think the best way to get faster is to enjoy it, the more you do the better you get, so go out and enjoy swim, biking and running, and don't feel to constrained and just do lots.
--Stephen Bayliss

You couldn't be more right. I can't possibly have any morals in my life since I think what happens in every single race, two competitors swimming hard and being physical, is ok. Pretty much sums up my feelings on stealing, rape, murder, etc.

Where in the rules does it say he has to change his line so a competitor can swim a better line. In my opinion Gomez should have adjusted speed slower or faster and chose a different line. And when someone says it was intentional, yeh he intentionally didn't get out of his way. Nothing wrong with that on the swim. They BOTH chose the line it wasn't like Gomez was swimming s shapes being followed.

Thanks for spell checking my post.

From: http://www.javiergomeznoya.com/blog_eng.php

Given the huge of comments, opinions, messages received etc ... about the controversy generated by the action of Harry Whiltshire in swimming, I have to talk about it and I would like to explain what happened.



First of all, I want to clarify that the problems I had with my stomach were not linked to what happened in the water... unless the cause of my stomach problems were the amount of water that this guy made me swallow. But I do not believe so.
Secondly, I want to say that Brownlees were the best in this championship, therefore, fair winners.
I have been competing 13 years in triathlons, in all kinds of levels and conditions. I have been hitted thousands of times, I''ve dated black eyes water, cuts, scratches ... (are there anyone dedicated to this who has not suffered these things?) and I understand that in the water you may be hitted, kicked , especially in the buoys because everyone wants to go to the same place and this leads to situations of tension and sometimes quite aggressive. That''s normal. What is not normal is that one guy looks for you, finds you, and then he focuses only on you, trying to provocate you a bad race, and driving you out of order.
Most of you would have seen a video on the Internet which is a SMALL PART of the aggressions I received. Everything starts on the second lap of the swim, when I was well positioned about 6 th or 7 th. The first thing I notice and happened, was someone grabing my foot and pulling me back, losing a little distance from those who preceded me, but I could restart fast without losing positions (not shown in this video). The second thing that happens is that (and this can be clearly watched on the video) Harry rushes to me and sinks me grabbing my head and shoulder. Then when I restart he locates parallel to me, to my left, and instead of going to the buoy, he takes me out of the right direction to head that buoy. I struggle with him in order to find the right way. When we finally reach the buoy he literally crash with the buoy, losing his speed, staying there blocking me, and losing a few positions (not shown in this video). When I achieve to turn (by hits),with him next to me on paralell, it happens the worst on terms of wasted time. Instead of following the draft of our predecessors, who were near the shore of the river, heading to the last pitch before getting out of the water, this guy pushes me to the right, I mean, towards the river’s center, out of the draft of the front athletes, which it is a waste of time and energy (this part is also watched in the video, two guys swimming away from the others). At first I think that he is disoriented and I struggle to show him that he has to go left to follow the others. But I soon realized he had no intention to correct his direction.Then, located parallel to him at his right, I could not take the correct direction, and he had no problem beating me if I tried to push him to the left. I increased the pace to get along and then move to the left, but he also accelerated and kept swimming parallel to me. Finally, fed up with the situation, I stopped letting him go so I could switch sides. Then I quickly started swimming to the left, the correct side. Now he was on my right and he inmediatly swam back towards me,pushing me this time to the other side, near the rocks on the shore.

Thus, after brutal energy expenditure and even larger wasted time, we reach the ladders to get out of the water where he blocked me (and this is very clear in the video) and instead of getting up and run to the transition, he looks back and stands blocking my way. Then another thing, which is not seen on the video, is that when we run on the long transition, he continually looks back to me, taking me against the fence when I tried to overtake him, until I finally pushed him away and I keep a clear path. His performance, which strongly pissed me off along with the energy expenditure, made me losing the lead group (again, before to 400m to transition, I was swimming 6 th or 7th following the leaders, at most 5 seconds behind the first swimmer and I finished getting out of the water at 18th position, 22 sec behind them).

But his dirty work did not end here, because when we were riding hard on the bike in order to catch the front chase pack, he dedicated himself to get into the turns organization in order to disturb, creating situations of real danger in the chase pack, riding sometimes over 60 km / h. This also complained Fred Belaubre, Laurent Vidal and David Hauss. In addition, journalists who were on the motorbikes following the race were witnesses too.
I know that this explanation has been a bit long but I prefer to tell what exactly happened and clarify that. As a triathlete, I am very upset that one colleague, instead of going out, compete and doing his best (like everyone else) he started the race with the clear goal of removing and hurt an opponent, in this case was me. I think this is an unacceptable behaviour that goes against the fundamental values ​​that should instil the sport, so I hope that it never happens again in the future.
Many people asked me if I think this was a deliberate tactic of the British team. Obviously I cannot know it. My personal opinion is not, emphatically. Both Alistair and Jonathan are good enough to win races in a fair behaviour, as they always did. I consider them great champions and I have great respect for them. Also, I have nothing against the British federation or anyone else who has not directly caused this situation. I have many friends in the British team. They showed me that they are not only great athletes but great guys as well. Many of them have given me their support and I thank them for their words. Like all other athletes who condemn such actions.

With this explanation, from my part I consider this situation ended.

Yikes.

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"A wise man once told me......God doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called."

He would have been better off to say nothing, in my opinion.

It was better that he actually said it, in my opinion.

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keep it simple , keep it real .
--Brett Sutton

But i dont really know that much about bikes. I just sit on em and do as i am told. peddle. hard and fast.
--Chrissie Wellington

I think the best way to get faster is to enjoy it, the more you do the better you get, so go out and enjoy swim, biking and running, and don't feel to constrained and just do lots.
--Stephen Bayliss

If you were a pro, what would you do the next time you raced him?

Act like a total f'wit and get DQ'd? Or just go about my business of racing hard and fair?

Guess it's a hard choice to make for some athletes.

You have jumped to conclusions there - that isn't what meant.

Maybe try to psych him out leading up to the race. "If you think THAT was bad - wait til you see what we have planned - but we'll disguise it better" etc etc..
Given what he has written, I would be surprised every triathlete that races him in the future didn't take it into consideration. If they don't, they should.

Can you imagine some of the Aussie guys from the 90's racing him? Imagine what they would say to him walking out to the pontoon.

Sometimes you compete against guys that are simply athletically superior to you, and you need to find an edge of some sort.

Yeah, I know. I had a hard time understanding what he meant by "what would you do next time...?" WTF? What are the options?

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“He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances” David Hume

NAB777, seriously man, just stop. You're just making yourself look like more and more of an inbreed.

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“He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances” David Hume

Interesting take. Rather than name calling, you could add something to the topic.

You mean that if you were racing pro, and a guy showed that he could be mentally 'got at' - you wouldn't use that? Particularly if he was a better athlete?

They can do whatever they like in accordance with the rules. Their actions will indicate more about their character than that of their competitors.

Why some people would want to attempt to make the swim some sort of MMA competition baffles me.

There is nothing smart or tough about deliberately roughing someone else up in the swim. I don't care if it was done in the 90's or is done in 10 years time. It's a scum act and it is not a part of racing that some people want to think or make it out to be. Yes you get hit, yes you don't hold back. But we're talking about deliberate actions, actions which people often try and claim "are a part of racing". Well when they are deliberate they are not a part of racing.

I'm sick of age group triathletes having to pull out of races because some goose in the swim decided he was going to "show them who's boss" and swim with fists or over the top of others.

They don't allow it in open water swim competitions.

If you want to fight, step in to the ring, not the water.

Nab777, honestly, that's not how I race. I feel sorry for anyone that does.

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“He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances” David Hume

I mustn't have made myself clear, although in reading it back, I thought I did.

"Maybe try to psych him out leading up to the race"

I didn't say that anyone should do anything to him during the race. I meant that in the lead up, people should be trying to psych him out & put him off his race. You know - mind games - to try to gain an edge over an athlete that you may normally have no chance to beat.

Can I spell it out any more clearly?

See above. It's about the pre race - not the race.

Why would anyone be the least bit worried about threats prior to the race - unless there was a risk those threats would be carried out.

So there is no point in someone "pysching" him out - because we all know it isn't allowed in the comptition for someone to deliberately carry out these acts

I'd just laugh it off. I'd imagine anyone would. Certainly Gomex indicated as I said, at times there will be clashes, bruises etc.

Gomez didn't seem to worried about the contact, and the contact itself wasn't the issue - it was the deliberate infringement of another atheltes progress.

Brit's have accepted that and the DQ.

That's why they are mind games :) Not everyone laughs them off.

Give em' nothing, I say.

Here's a link to better help you with your mind games:

http://www.howcast.com/...-Out-the-Competition

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“He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances” David Hume

I'm not a pro, so I don't want to imagine what I would do the next time.

From what I have seen (i.e., the video), it was a deliberate attempt of Wiltshit [sp?] to impede Javier Gomez; truly unsportsmanlike.

I don't mind psyching out games (Macca, Muhammad Ali did it), but what was done was just plain bad.

Also, reading my first reply to you, I didn't mean to be antagonistic; was just rushing a quick reply before I headed out, soI also put forth my opinion. You are of the opinion that Gomez should have kept it to himself (for whatever reason), and I am of the opinion that I think it will be better for him to have done as he did, which is to write it down in his public blog: it gets it out if his chest (and perhaps can now focus on his next task at hand), and maybe anyone attempting to even slightly touch Javier would be seen by officials/spectators as something that shouldn't be done, which might give him more space in his next race.

We just have differing opinions, is all. I feel my opinion is the right one, and you feel yours is the correct one. Agree to disagree instead?

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keep it simple , keep it real .
--Brett Sutton

But i dont really know that much about bikes. I just sit on em and do as i am told. peddle. hard and fast.
--Chrissie Wellington

I think the best way to get faster is to enjoy it, the more you do the better you get, so go out and enjoy swim, biking and running, and don't feel to constrained and just do lots.
--Stephen Bayliss

Actually, we agree on most points.

Spot on.

Unfortunately, I don't need to play mind games any more - I am never in a position for them to be of use.

it is just sport mate. people like you are why we have riots over lost hockey matches and football hooliganism. ;)

X2

Taking it seriously doesn't mean it's life or death. It's treated like any other job and enjoy the fact that we're privileged enough to galavant around the world getting paid to swim, cycle, run and have breakfast at coffee shops.

As soon as sport stops being about the love of the game, that's usually when people retire. You can still be finishing MOP and make enough from sponsors to break even which is what I did for a couple of years. Now Im at grad school and venturing out into the real world.