B_Doughtie wrote:
Nonsense rules.
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Actually it's not nonsense rules. The clarity within usat club commissioners and their rules is where the "mixup" happened.
Yes I have an idea why they don't allow sleeves- likely they don't so that it doesnt turn into a "tech" war and it's less about your uniform choice and more about the athlete inside the uniform....go figure, they want to take out as much non competitive things as they can for that type of distance race.
If it's cold yes you can wear armwarmers.
In terms of "sun exposure"- no that's not really an concern with the rules.
Yes this is club sports. Many of these athletes can only afford 1 uniform. There seems to have been a mixup between the conference commissioners understanding of the rules and the actual rules of the event going into this event and the info they were distributing to the athletes. The head scratcher isn't really that they are putting in strict rules. The issue was with the clarity and understanding of the rules. I'm a DL focused coach so I understood the rules fairly easily. But likely majority of teams dont have coaches than do have coaches and thus can at times either not understand the at times "overwhelming" nature of DL regulations/rules or simply take in the wrong info.
So it's not the specificity of the rules that is the issue. It was in the application of the rules that some confusion came into play. I don't think anyone was trying to "game" the system here- I think most with sleeves thought it was legal and no issues. BUT the ones with sleeves were breaking rules, and so the application of the rules and the protest and appeal process was done in accordance to the rules. So AJohnson's comments that the officials error'd in this ruling against Queens is simply incorrect. Queens will take their medicine, learn from this, be a little more pissed off for next year and make sure all their i's are dotted and t's crossed so no issue like this occurs moving forward. They'll go beast mode next year looking to sweep all the races (women's, men's, MTR, combined) . The same will happen likely with USAT/collegiate conferences. They'll resolve the uniform issue one way or the other- either allow "any" uniform essentially. Or make it better known/understood what the uniform requirements are for each event.
I should clarify, I’m not against rules per se, and not a proponent of an arms race (like that one?) but a collegiate level, club sport, should have the most liberal use of clothing rules, that are still part of triathlon rules in general, whether its DL, shortcourse, Longcourse, etc. Sleeves are allowable on longcourse, sleeveless on DL, combine the two clothing rules and allow both. If someone wants to rock less coverage, using a speedo or jammers, and that’s all they can afford, let them do that... if they want to show their naval, so what? I guess being in the sport for many years and seeing shortcourse to IM athletes win in all sorts of outfits over the decades, including Mark Allen dominating in speedo briefs and Paula Newby Fraser in two piece suits or Fernanda Keller with a Brazilian cut suit, frankly the different styles made the sport more laid back, and enjoyable.
I think making the sport more inclusive, more inviting to newcomers, and affordable at the collegiate level should be a primary objective of the rules, along with safety. When I was in college many moons ago, many triathletes also dabbled in cycling races, so our club uniform was basically a cycling skinsuit, with sleeves, and we raced bikes in it and did tris in them.