I could take a stab at answering some of those, might be the same answers or at least close to what LowCountry might say.
<< I'm curious why you think USAT referees are "the best in the world." Surely there are some good ones, but why can't GTG train officials to be just as good if not better?
there are good and there are not so good officials within the USAT program, but on the whole, I think the officials are the best officials anywhere in the world as well. I haven't raced in every country in the world, but I know from the races that I have done in Europe compared to here in the US, our officials in general are a lot less lenient towards drafting and other rules. GTG can certainly train good officials as well. But as LC said, they are many years behind the learning curve on this. USAT has been training and certifying officials for many years and GTG is just starting. They will probably go through a instruction curve and have to tweak their program many times just to get to where USAT is at this point, for better or worse.
<< Also, it is my understanding that the head USAT official sent a letter to all USAT officials in June prohibiting them from working at GTG events, stating that it was "not in the best interest of the officials program." I would call that "intimidation."
USAT does not sanction the GTG events because in part we don't think it is safe to have age group stand down penalties on certain courses during an Ironman. Why would we then say to our officials, we don't think it's safe, but it's alright for you to go and officiate an unsafe event. USAT invests in the officials and the officials program, why would we want them going out and using USAT training at a non USAT event. To look at it another way, it's like the head of Google sending a memo out to it's employees telling them not to do side work for Yahoo, do you see that as intimidation as well?
<< What do you mean when you say that USAT officials are "able to judge intent, absent from intimidation." Why can't GTG officials do the same thing?
this opens up a whole different can of worms. It will just show you how small of an inscestious (sp?) family within the sport this is. Now first of all, I think Jimmy is doing a good job, he's trying to do the best he can with what is being given to him so this isn't a direct stab at him. That being said, Jimmy, Paula, Huddle etc, they all work for Multisports.com. They also all work for either WTC, GTG or IMNA in one way or another. One of the owners of Multisport.com is also John Duke. John Duke is also the owner/publisher of Triathlete magazine. One of Triathlete magazines bigggest advertisers is WTC/GTG/IMNA. What does Multisports.com do? They put on training camps and coach athletes. Who are some of their athletes? Well aside from a lot of age groupers, Michillie Jones is one. Even though it was there on world wide coverage, did Michillie get a penalty for having her coach, Paula run through the whole T2 at Hawaii with her? Even if it wasn't worthy of a penalty, were any other coaches allowed to run through transition with their athletes? Now what if Paula was a draft marshall? Could she be unbiased in making a call against her star athlete Michillie? I don't have an answer for that, but I wouldn't want to have to find out, I'd rather have completely unbiased officials out there. I used to work as an official, but when I started having races where I had clients competing, I realized it wasn't right and stopped officiating, especially at events where I might have a client competing.
Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org