I don't know what there would be to explain other than there are two possibly valid sides of the story, and the Jimmy chose to back the official instead of the athlete.

Just because an athlete has a plausible case it doesn't mean the race director has to compromise from the officials decision. If that were the case, then you set precedence that every single drafting penalty could be disputed that the athlete was told they were given a different card.

I'd think he could explain the reasoning behind the severity or lack of the call and how they distinguish what warrants what penalty. If it is a blocking penalty at the WC, given the efforts put forth by said athlete and cost to them, I'd think they'd opt for the lesser of the two calls whatever they would be in the alledged circumstance. It's not about the he said he said bit, but about how they arrive at that judgement.

My interpretation (which could be wrong) is that the athlete insists that they were shown and verbally told yellow, and that the official claims that they showed and verbally told blue for a infraction that warranted blue. Not that the official claimed to show blue for blocking when they should have shown yellow. If that's the case, and the official claims to have shown blue for what should have been yellow, and yellow was served, then there needs to be an explanation.

Assuming it's the former and not the later, if your Jimmy, you have to pick one side or the other, and siding with the official is usually the best thing to do to avoid setting precedence. Not just that another athlete could use this as an excuse going forward, but what kind of message does it send to your officials if the official is adamant that they made the proper penalty call out but the race director overrules the official simply because they have a hunch the official made a mistake?

Factoring in that it is a WC, efforts put forth, cost to the athlete are all irrelevant. You can't just opt for the lesser of two judgments just because there is uncertainty on who is right or wrong or there is a lot at stake. You have to pick one side and stand by it...even if you know it could be wrong.

It's just like football replay reviews. You either stick with the call on the field or overturn it. If objects or players are blocking all the camera views for a head referee to make a decision on a play you have to stick with the call on the field. You can't just say "replay the down" because we aren't sure if the official made the right call and the player has a plausible argument that the call was blown.

I for one tend to believe the athlete. And it sucks if that were true.

"Maybe the ref made the mistake about the color, or maybe the athlete made the mistake about the color".....If a yellow card is a time penalty, and a blue card is a DQ, the only way I would make a mistake on the color (as an athlete) is if I was totally color blind. Because there is no way I'm going to finish the bike ride and charge through the marathon (fast enough to get on the podium) if I knew I was DQ'd at mile 80.....

That was my exact train of thoughts, and what I tried to explain to them.
The only reply I got was "your ticket has been closed, if you have any further questions, ... "

I know how I was ranked, I'm very happy with my performance, but it just stings not to see yourself in the results.

There's an interesting point here - WTC is a (very) commercial organisation. And to some extent they need to live by the old adage "the customer is always right". Here, they need to balance the unhappiness of the customer who feels (we assume) he has been wrongly DQ'd against the potential unhappiness of his competitors who could feel he has gained some unfair advantage. They also need to never publicly undermine their officials. Wouldn't a conversation with the referee to suggest asking the 3rd place finisher whether they'd be OK with a reinstatement be a sensible compromise? Bit late now I guess.

I had a similar incident when I raced there. I got a penalty for undertaking two FPRO riders who were in the middle of the lane struggling with the wind on the climb to Hawi. It was stupid of me not to wait, but I genuinely thought it was the safest option at the time. Anyway I get to T2 and reported to the tent with a red line across my number. 5 minutes later (it was a 4 minute penalty) they hadn't called my name, so I asked the official if I could go. He said "you're not on my list, go", so I went. I crossed the finish line, collected my t-shirt and medal and off I went. Next day I'm shown as DQ. Presumably, when the official said "you're not on my list", he meant that I hadn't checked into the tent properly. I guess I'll never know. I wrote to Ironman to ask what happened (out of curiosity, I really wasn't bothered, I had my medal and my memories). I heard nothing until some time later I got a letter to say I was reinstated in the results and - I am not making this up - an Ironman World Championship coffee mug by way of apology. The mug had a typo on - it says "... CHAMPIONSNIP". I still have it, and it still makes me laugh. I can just see the scene in the office ... "what are we going to do with all these defect mugs?", "hey, I have an idea ..."

The athletes are already wearing timing chips that are read wirelessly. Why can’t the official have an electronic device that reads the chip, he inputs the penalty that althete recieved, and then it’s brosdcasted back just like the remote timing stations are.

Don't come here with your common sense.

This would actually be something someone from Sportstats would be able to address. Maybe they are part of the solution--the actual configuration of your suggestion, if they have the means, would be a good solution.

What else would be cool is like those "Now Serving" signs a bit before the penalty tents. Like the ones in a deli at the grocery market. You could have multiple lines of race number scrolling as an addition to a card. If you're unsure you have a penalty or whatever kind it is, it could be like the ref enters in the race # on a device that sends it to the sign, with either the color or time amount of penalty. As you roll up to the penalty area & forgot--you have verification on the "Now Serving" sign (as it would be logged into a database). The rest is electronic as for when you cross the timing pad of the penalty tent & when you exit.

The countdown with your race # and timer is counting down for you on a billboard at the penalty tent. Sounds like a lot of $$ to create that solution, but a business opp for someone who is into electronics & solving an issue. Not sure how much market there is outside of tri though--but for Sportstats, that would be a state of the art solution to make sure they are always contracted for the W.C. races for years to come.

Hawaii is a mass start with mostly strong athletes. So there's a big group coming out of the water at the same time and congestion as the bike starts.

Both cards are time penalties. The blue card is a 5 min penalty; if he only served 1 min vs 5 min that presumably would be grounds for a DQ.

So the athlete in question served a penalty, just the wrong penalty. There is no way a DQ fits the 'crime' here. A DQ should only be if the athlete ignored the penalty completely and didn't stop. I appreciate Ironman has to support their officials, but just adding the 'time not served' to the athlete's finish time seems the best option. If Ironman thinks that doing so might open a can of worms whereby people start deliberately 'mishearing' penalty awards in the hope the official might back down, or to allow the athlete to catch up to a nice draft pack, then add the full time penalty awarded to the athlete's finish time (in addition to the time served) or an additional time penalty on top of the penalty time difference. Reading this, it doesn't look like Ironman can definitively prove which penalty was served, and if that is the case, they really need to rethink their systems - are they leaving themselves open to a legal challenge for return of race fees???

Heartbreaking error by the ref and result for your friend, what a great guy to rally and be at awards for you.

We actually wrote something about 10+ years ago for Kona where athletes would scan in the tent, the bib number and countdown would start on the computer screen and flash red when there was 15 seconds left to go. This recorded the correct number, time of day in and out because the actual transponder was scanned.

We looked at into building a 100% custom app for this a few years ago, this should be a collaboration of USAT, Ironman, Challenge etc... so it can be used and adjusted for each event with correct penalty time. We think a app that would work on android/iphone platform would be ideal. Ref takes a picture of athlete with bib number and records penalty (blue/yellow)....athletes stops at penalty tent, number is entered and correct penalty pops onto the screen of the computer at the tent showing the next to leave etc.... We could also integrate a QR code scanner that could enter correct bib but sometimes finding a way to correctly print that on a bracelet, bib or bike plate can be challenging....app should have both options.. The system automatically tabulates every penalty and verifies that everyone did serve the penalty. Refs have photo evidence at the end so reducing error etc.... With Mifi's getting better and better as well as cell phones, you could have 20-30 refs using the secure platform on race day making everyone's job a lot easier we think. App would be updated in real time all the time...

We estimate the cost of building this app in the $10-20k approximately and then maintaining this every year etc..... but we think it could really benefit the sport and make the jobs of the referees much better!...