sthwaite wrote:
mattsurf wrote:
This guy is a former Elite Level Athlete, still at the top of his AG in ITU and a great runner, basically, he had absolutely no need to cheat. However, all of his runs on IMVR were completed as a series of intervals, with short breaks during each run. I have no idea why he chose to run this way, however, the rules are completely clear on this, and should have resulted in a DQ. He looks like a genuine guy, and I suspect that he didn't look at the rules closely enough, but ignoreance is not a defence I finished 3rd in the AG, one place behind. It was an honour to race so closely with someone who is clearly such a strong athlete. However, our times and results were so close that in a fair race, I might have beaten him, and that hurts.
The most disappointing aspect is Ironman's lack of interest to do anything about this. This wasn't some technical infringment, this was a clear violation of the rules, that gave an athlete a significant advantage. The evidence is clear both on the moving time and elapsed time on Strava, but also in the athletes heart rate.
I think I found the guy you're referring to. From Strava stalking / looking at the GPS tracks, the intervals coincide with main road crossings.... so the charitable explanation is that he didn't intend to cheat but had auto-pause on the Garmin which kicked in while waiting at road crossings.
This doesn't make the result legit (IM should absolutely take the total elapsed time of the activity, that's just a no-brainer) but maybe it wasn't malicious....
Makes sense, although some of those crossing times must be very long.