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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

If they were following USAT rules it was only two penalties. First offense is 4 minutes, second is 8 minutes.

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ahhhh, that makes sense. My bad. I was wondering why it wasn't a DQ after 3, that would answer that question.

If USAT rules, a third penalty would be a DSQ.

What actually worries me is that the fastest bike split of the day got a drafting penalty. I did reach out to him and ask him about it a few days ago and he confirmed it was drafting penalty. I didn't get into further details with him.

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Which begs the question why penalties are not greater

Haha generally it is the slower riders drafting off the faster ones. I don't understand if you are the fastest rider there why you would even want to draft but it seems people still do.

It looks like 5 people out of the 6 fastest bike splits got penalties. It is party how they get the fastest splits.

I've been in a few races with multi lap bike courses where it was pretty obvious there was a really fast small group at the front with people taking turns. In this case there is the winner, then there is the 5 with penalties and then the next fastest bike split is 2 minutes slower and no one else penalised in the top 30 bike times. So you'd guess that those 5 were drafting off each other to some degree. At least that is what it looks like.

Maybe that's how they're the fastest rider there. Sit behind someone for much or even most of the ride and then push on solo while still relatively fresh due to the energy saved. Alternatively push hard early on to catch similar paced riders up the road and then sit on for the remainder of the ride thus ending up with a faster time than them. You can't set the fastest time drafting off someone slow, but you could if you drafted the faster riders and are capable of using the saved energy to gain some time when the opportunity arises.

I was happy to see some penalties handed out. This race had a 3 bike length draft zone, which is definitely small enough to get draft benefits legally.

The guy that won the race rode the race solo, I never saw him once on the bike. Behind him were two groups, one of three people and one of 5-8 riders (not sure exactly how many). I was in the group of three riders. After 16 miles of dragging two riders behind me (legally I will say, they were keeping their three bike length distance) I decided to sit up and take some draft at 3 bike lengths. I wasn't gonna give them a ride for 56 miles. We took turns pulling for the next 30 miles or so. The group I was in (2,3, and 4 places during the bike) rode legally. We had an official all over us and none of us got penalties.

The larger group behind us is the group that got a lot of penalties. This is the group the fastest bike split was in. At mile 40-45 or so they came into our group's sight when I looked back and we broke up a bit to avoid getting caught by that second group. For the most part everyone came together heading into T2.

As for the fastest bike split getting a penalty, he came out of the water behind and worked his way through the field. He was not leading the bike, but working his way through the pack so it makes sense the fastest bike split could get a penalty.

I am not inclined to believe there was blatant cheating going on in that group. I think these groups start to form and lines are skirted. Drafting happens. Where I have an issue with it is when it is not enforced and kudos to Door County Triathlon for having motos out there and handing out penalties.

WRT the 12 Min penalties - the first was 4 min, the second was 8 min. I am not sure if the officials were showing cards, so those that got two penalties may not have known they got popped until after the finish when results were posted.

Worries you?!?! Sheesh, I hope you aren't kept up at night.


I coach Dustin, he's one of the most honest racers out there. We are a bit puzzled by the call. If you are skeptical of his riding and running abilities you can look at Wisconsin Tri Series, Wisconsin 70.3, ST George and pretty much any other race he's toed the line at. He out rides Vant at most all races they've done together. Additionally, he's never received a call in all his years of racing.

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This was troubling to me. There were a few out there who were riding like a team TT and the officials decided to take it personally and in their own words "try to get them DQ'd." Instead of observing after this point and simply doing their job without bias, they tried to make as many passes as possible to have reasons to write up calls. When asking them about Dustin's call, they said " there were 4 riders together at one point and then there were 5, so he must have been doing it too." The reality is that Dustin caught the group of 4 and immediately went past, they all jumped on his wheel and somehow all of them ended up with penalties.

What I don't like is that there was no explanation of where his penalty happened. Then post race the official apologized if he made a bad call. ... seriously?!?!

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Officials are not full time officials and I realize they do make mistakes, however I am not sure apologizing is the way to go though. If you see drafting, make a call and stick by it!

USAT needs to adopt the penalty boxes like WTC...otherwise what prevents the racers from continuing on and benefiting until the end of the bike?

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Professional Triathlete
Owner of Blake Becker Multisport Coaching LLC / Team BBMC
blakebeck@gmail.com
http://www.teambbmc.com

When I say "worries" I equate that to your use of "troubling" in that I am not worried about Dustin actions so much... I am worried about officiating. I looked at the swim splits, I know a little about DC and some of the athletes including Dustin. I know he is a strong rider and strong runner. To me, when I see a rider working himself from the back of the swim forward and gets a penalty... well I don't like to see that as an athlete - without further context it leaves a very unfair taste in my mouth. Logic + much race experience at the pointy-end says that if he gets caught up in a drafting call maybe it was because he is getting worn out trying to shake other tails and gets a bad call. Maybe it was an overtaken situation and Dustin didn't drop back before making a repass. I don't know. That is why I asked himself but unless it is the race-leader who has the fastest split, I never like to see fastest split of the day get a drafting call, especially when I am familiar with the capabilities of the athlete.

As for penalty boxes, it would be nice if USAT had the capability to do a stand-down on the spot for these non-elite races. Maybe anyone racing in the open field, or whatever DC calls it.

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What’s troubling to me is that with a race with no price money we can’t chalk this up to shit happens.

Officials could of made a good call, a bad call, and okay call. It doesn’t change anything besides the ordering in the finishing sheet for this race.

I’m glad more penalties aren’t called in Tris, the whole front page of ST would be threads complaining about them.

Agreed on the stand down, although it takes the official out of the race for 4 minutes.

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Professional Triathlete
Owner of Blake Becker Multisport Coaching LLC / Team BBMC
blakebeck@gmail.com
http://www.teambbmc.com

It does.

In this situation, I hate to see a public forum post of names in races from athletes observing from a far.

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Professional Triathlete
Owner of Blake Becker Multisport Coaching LLC / Team BBMC
blakebeck@gmail.com
http://www.teambbmc.com

aren't we all though? were you on the motorbike watching your athlete the whole race? i'm not saying i don't believe that he's a honest racer, i'm just saying that you know as much as anybody else does, with the exception of having a personal/professional relationship with the athlete. we are all arm chair quarterbacks, pretty much.

Having personally talked to the official and the athlete, I know more than anyone here.

Calling out someone by name, as was done here, is something that no one should be doing. IMHO

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Professional Triathlete
Owner of Blake Becker Multisport Coaching LLC / Team BBMC
blakebeck@gmail.com
http://www.teambbmc.com

The way NOT to respond to this situation is to come on here and say:

"The volunteer officials are biased and botched their job. The other athletes are cheaters, not mine and all you people talking about it on slowtwitch have no right to discuss this and you should just shut up."

The right way to respond to this would be (and probably for your athlete to say it if anything needs to be said, not you):

"Hey guys, yeah I got a drafting penalty. I tried my best to ride clean but I guess the official saw something when I was passing this group of 4 athletes. I had a great time at the race and my thanks go to the RD, and volunteers and officials. See you guys out there!"

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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