Maybe someone who is interested in watching the future of the sport?
Maybe someone who enjoys the teamwork and interschool rivalries?
Maybe someone who enjoys watching/following the sport, no matter the venue or type of race?
Maybe someone who is thankful that USAT provides these kids with the opportunity to compete at a national championship.
Maybe someone who doesn't have their head up their ass and can't understand why everyone doesn't see things the way he does..

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"Good genes are not a requirement, just the obsession to beat ones brains out daily"...the Griz

To shed some light on the sleeve rules, we were explicitly told during the DL briefing on Thursday, which I believe Queens had four athletes and a coach there (could be wrong about this but I highly suspect it) that sleeves were not allowed, and during the MTR briefing on Friday we were told basically the same thing. I am not defending the decision to DQ Queens because I don't agree with that and it seemed like there were a lot of schools who did wear sleeves for both the DL and MTR and didn't get punished. I know some schools actually rolled up their sleeve too to be in compliance with the rules. Ironically, last year we were told sleeves were allowed in the DL race too. I could be wrong about this but the way I understand it was that Queens was DQ for failing to serve the penalty for wearing sleeves but I checked the penalty board after the third person went and there was only one number on there and it wasn't Queens. I also didn't see an official at the penalty box either but that could just be because everyone served their penalties. Just some insight from someone who was there and went to the briefings.

And it's not like Jack Felix is the oldest pro triathlete racing collegiate nats. Ian King is 28 going on 29 this and has raced for so many schools that I've lost count, but raced for CSU this year.

According to Rudy Von Berg, it was Colorado University that filed a protest.

(Unspecified edit)

(Impressive double dip here.)



At what point are you just going to change your user ID to ETA? This collection is from just this thread!

Forgive my ignorance, but why in the hell aren't sleeves allowed? I know in regular old USAT tris, I almost always wear sleeves. The only time I don't is if I know it's going to be super hot on the run. So is the issue here that a uniform had sleeves, or that the members of the team didn't have exactly matching uniforms?

I think the nitty gritty focus on something so mundane is just a real bad look. (a) it's absolutely asinine to regulate to the point of whether a jersey should be sleeveless, and (b) if the general logo is the same and the only difference is whether or not one top has or doesn't have sleeves, then why can't it be considered a "matching uniform"?

Honestly I have no idea why sleeves weren't allowed and it was even weirder that they changed the rules from last year to this year too.

First off, I wasn't being dismissive about the competition or the athletes competing in it; just saying that this competition is not of big consequences in the overall scheme of competitive triathlon. Yeah, it may be a "Controversy at Collegiate Nationals", but it's not really that consequential.

Since you commented, here is my response:

1. unlikely, maybe on the men's side, but with the new ASU/high performance program USAT set up, the pathway to the future - read Olympics - is probably not through Collegiate Club Nats
2. sure, for the kids - some not so kids - themselves for the most part
3. of course you may; I followed and cheered on for some of the athletes I know, but outside of this circle, I doubt many really care
4. ok, not sure why would that make anyone care more or less
5. "well, that's just, like, your opinion"

Collegiate Club Nationals is ONE of the most competitive races in the country. I'd say it's definitely the most competitive OLY distance race. Look at the times that the top 100 kids are throwing down. People split hairs about races in this forum that quite honestly don't mean crap. Your average 70.3 is significantly less competitive than Collegiate Nats.

It’s normally not done by age. As I said it a previous post it’s number of years in school. So grad students generally can’t race NCAA stuff because they’d be over the 4 years in college limit. As far as I know there aren’t any “age limited” sports in college.

But as others have said for level of club sport that triathlon is, it’s just a lot of work and not worth it.

Ignore function can work really well for you if you have an issue.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

To your Olympic pathway- this is becoming a likely very very competitive pathway especially for the men's side. The women's depth is growing and I'd say is better race than all but the D1 NCAA fields, and I'd wager only 1-2 schools at that.


It's also likely a easier pathway within ITU format because there is zero regulations here. It's why Queens is basically becoming an "training squad" collegiate team.


Podium project isn't the answer because it's only going to take in a few a year at most. So many are going to have other options to pursue.




And I'll say this- Collegiate Nats has a likely far more important aspect of next level racing than JE Series does. JE Series has a HUGE burnout rate.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

There is a 5 year window that starts after graduating high school for the majority of NCAA sports. One has 4 years of eligibility in that 5 year window. The 5 year window CAN be extended under extreme circumstances but requires NCAA approval on a case by case basis.

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blog

I hope they let the young people race in sleeved and unsleeved next year... no DQs. Bummer for Queens, they raced great all weekend.

There is a 5 year window that starts after graduating high school for the majority of NCAA sports.//

I believe in my day, the window didn't start until you entered college, not when you graduated high school. So is that a recent change?? There were several athletes that took off a year or two after high school, and thus you have older folks racing as seniors, especially if they red shirted in there too..

The 5 year window doesn't actually matter in terms of when you finish high school. It has everything to do with the moment you step on campus. Your 1st day of class you have 5 year window to complete 4 years of eligibility barring any extra medical redshirts or religious missions (ex: mormon athletes).


It's why Chris Weinke who never went to college out of HS (ETA: He went and played pro baseball out of HS and skipped college totally) was a 26 year old "freshman" QB at FSU like 20 years ago.


So it all starts when you start actual 1st day of college, now of course most scholarship athletes start immediately post HS. But the 5 year window only starts when you start on campus. Not after your final HS year.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

That’s not what the ncaa site says. I’ve only found one website that says that you have a one year grace period after high school. But that isn’t on the NCAA site that I can find.

No you are right. It's when you start classes at a university/college.

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blog

I've done collegiate nats three years now, ag nats a couple times, and even a few 70.3 races. Collegiate nats is by far the most competitive race out of all those as well as the most fun. Also, just for the general thread, I believe there used to be a limited number of years you could compete but this was changed about 4 years ago to unlimited eligibility.

Former D1 swimmer here. The 5 year window exists.

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blog

I think because of the elite-like formats, they are trying to somewhat approximate ITU rules... In those rules, it's not the format (DL or Non-DL) that dictate the sleeves rule, it's the distance. For the standard, sprint and super-sprint distances sleeves are not allowed, and where they are allowed (middle and long distance), they are not allowed for a non-wetsuit swim.

That being said, the challenge appears to be that there is not a set of clear rules that you can then enforce with consistency. If you have clear rules, they can be re-iterated at the briefings, and then form the basis for any decisions made by a competition jury in the case of an appeal. When there's not a clear set of rules, it makes any decision a mess... Hopefully all involved learn from this, and either the USAT or the NCAA look at clarifying the rules, so that next year any cases are black and white, as opposed to a shade of grey... The article was an interesting read, although potentially biased in the facts that were shared due to the author being part of the team involved...

In terms of the penalties issues that were mentioned... again, not too familiar with the USAT rules (although I've seen the time penalties after the fact before at races), but in the ITU rules, there are specifications on timing by which a penalty has to be posted in order for it to be enforced (usually before the last lap of the run, and certainly before the athlete (or in the case of MTR, the last athlete from the team) pass the penalty board for the last time).

I'm super happy that I was not an official in this case, because when there's not clarity, you get into the tricky area of having to interpret the spirit of the rule when making a decision, which is a hard position to defend... But this is how competition rules evolve, grey areas get exposed, someone has to make a tricky decision, and then at the next revision of the rules, they try to make it black and white... It's certainly a shitty way to get DSQ'd. although if as some posters noted it was indeed mentioned at the briefing, then I am a little less sympathetic, since if they heard that, and then knew a team member wished to race in a sleeved suit, they should have approached the head ref proactively to ask for an exception...

I think ITU rules say suits must be sleeveless (for whatever reason), USAT follows that rule for all draft-legal races, the MTR is draft-legal, so if you follow the letter of the law, all athletes in MTR races much wear sleeveless.

In the Collegiate Club Nats, they have draft-legal races and then non draft-legal races. With these being club athletes who pay their own way to these competitions, and some do DL and some do non-DL, the DL rules for suits weren't enforced very strictly in previous years, until this protest.

just as an update, i think this story is about to evolve.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

A bunch of behind the scenes discussion for stuff moving forward.

I think the key in all of this is clarity for everyone. Collegiate Nats is an unique environment in that with the Juniors 99.9% of it is funded by parents. AG Nats is funded by well established working professionals. Collegiate Nats truly is the 1 national championship that is made up of mostly "poor" athletes. We need to simply the rules as much as possible with that aspect. I'd also like to see clarity/discussion on NCAA status athletes racing club level in the same year. Currently that will result in a lose of ncaa eligibility. However, with the 2 sports being in different months of the same academic year, an "senior" who's exhausted NCAA eligiblity can turn around and race collegiate club 4 months later. That's one of the other topics the committee is going to address as well. If everyone thinks the current "eligibility" with NCAA athletes is the best way, great. I just know the "spirit" of the rule is iffy when you double dip as a graduating senior.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Currently the only school that has had seniors race club and NCAA is Queens.

However...Grace Norman is a junior at Cedarville and has been racing NCAA XC and track for them, and raced the Oly at Collegiate Nats. She redshirted the 2018 XC season but is on the roster to race track this season and has already competed in a few T&F meets this year.

You hit the nail on the head with that one. Lippert has made it tough to take anything he says or does seriously. While running the USAT Instagram on this past Thursday he made an absolute fool of himself IMO. Taking 6 credits online, not even living in the state of your university and having everything given to you (including your tuition) by your "club" team makes it pretty hard to compare him and his teammates to the typical broke college athlete at this event taking a full course load and living in a college dorm just trying to get by.