I have never heard of a "swim tag" in triathlon, although I am by no means the world's foremost expert. What is the purpose? Is it for safety--i.e., to ensure they account for all swimmers entering the water having come out? Or, is it to track times and places coming out of the water? In either case, there are alternative ways of doing those that don't require keeping track of an extra piece of stuff. It's not like triathletes really need one more thing to lose during a race.

In any case, if the rule was published beforehand, and it was stipulated what the penalty was, then I don't understand the beef.

Back in the day, the Windsor (Ont.) triathlon used to give out velcro bracelets to everyone, that had 3 little vecro patches on it with your number. After each leg, you 'handed in' a little patch. Pretty wierd, but it helped keep track of everybody. I don't think they used it for the timing, just for safety.

I understand the rule about turning in the swim tag was written down, so there was no question there. I'm just venting because the race is expensive and poorly run in many areas -- bad example for lots of beginners to the sport.

In the previous years there was no penalty for not turning in the tag. Also believe that there are two purposes -- keeping track of swimmers, and swim splits. It is a pretty silly way of doing business, especially since chip timing is available. And face it, if they are relying on swimmer safety by counting the swim tags after everybody has left the water, it's too late to save the victim anyway...

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FIST Certified Fitter
Salt Lake City, Utah

I've used a tag in a swim before, it was a peice of paper attached with a paper clip to my zipper cord.

Can't believe they let something like that effect the outcome of the winner of the race.

Swim tags and the mystery penalties were major pain in the ass. I chased James (the winner) the whole way with Jeff Sanders (eventual 3rd than 1st) the whole way. Jeff and I were in a "pack" of around 5 riders for the first half of the bike about a minute back on James. Tinman has really strange drafting rules with a 6 foot draft zone. Our pack was close, USAT officials would probably handed out a penalty or two. But this wasn't USAT and although we weren't intentionally (hell I wanted out of that damn pack but couldn't get away) drafting it was pretty tight. We had a marshall riding just off of our shoulder the whole time were in a pack and he didn't seem to think anything was wrong.

Broke away with Jeff on the bike turnaround and came into T2 seconds apart. The run was the same way with my faster T2 leaving Jeff to chase me down as I chased James down. We closed it from 1:15 for me at T1, to 1:15 at T2 to 20+ seconds at the finish. I didn't outkick Jeff until the last 25m or so. The finish is a 3/4mile straight away and it was him surging, me surging, him surging back, back and forth, it was hell but it was the most exciting race I've ever done.

Than the results. The swim tag issue. This is the first year I've turned in my swim tag. This rule has been around forever, although it didn't used to merit a disqualification. If you've had swim tags every year and you often don't turn it in but face no penalty (James has done this race year after year) you don't expect to get DQ'd for doing it again. We all talked to the refs to get rid of his penalty but they refused. And then more penalties showed up. I have a 6 minute penalty and Jeff had a 3 minute. Why, we're assuming drafting but they WON"T tell us what they were for. It's crazy, they wouldn't even tell us if it was a drafting penalty, position foul, transition penalty... And the only way we knew we had a penalty was out times were off on the score sheet. At first we thought only I had a 3 min time penalty but than we looked at the time gap between my time and 4th after the penalty (20 sec or so) and the fact that we had over a 5 minute gap at the finish. Downloaded my Polar and it confirmed my suspicions, a 6 minute mystery penalty.

I love this race, but they either need chips or better officiating. And the swim starting in teh DARK, you couldn't even see the bouys. Again, I can't believe they DQ'd James!

Hey Tai,

If they keep "rolling down" these times I may win this thing yet! :~)

Just kidding, good luck, you guys worked too hard to be hassled.

See you at Ko' olina? They have "chips". :~)

Aloha,

Larry

Tai, great job on the race, I'm sorry I missed the exciting finish. As far as Tinman goes, I think it needs to go away and be replaced by a real triathlon, the Honolulu Triathlon, which has a nice, 1500 m open ocean swim course, USAT sanctioned, real course marshals who know the rules and enforce them properly, chip timing, and a safe race course. And starts in daylight. I have never been a race director but after racing in this race for 6 years I got tired of putting up with all of the nonsense and started my own little personal boycott last year. Maybe the fiasco(s) this year will shake things up. But I doubt it.

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FIST Certified Fitter
Salt Lake City, Utah

well, you may get your wish Marty as rumor has it the race is up for sale. I know one person who wants it and from their comments on it earlier if they take it it should see improvements as well as chip timing. We'll just have to wait and see. I hope it doesn't die as I really like the race despite it's downsides. It's like the Great Aloha Run, real runners know it's got it's quirks (hell you can cut 200m of easily if you know the short cut at mile 1) and timing cards are always off, but as long as you go into it not expecting it to be perfect it's a lot of fun. Tinman was a blast, till the results came in.

Tai,

I know what you mean, I know Faye and Olga personally and they are both good, hard working ladies. It has always been called "the peoples race" meaning that even all the newcomers can have fun and not get too serious. I have finished it 14 times so I have plenty of seniority. It may not be as serious as some of the sanctioned events but most of us knew that when we signed up. I, for one, would miss it if it disapperaed but I also enjoy the Honolulu Triathlon and the more serious events. A little of something for everyone.

Aloha,

Larry

I'm a Tinman veteran, raced over 10 times, a few age group placings, so I think I have a spot on the soap box. The swim tag protocol is ancient technology and should have been phased out years ago. I'm shocked they're still using it. I know that in the past if you didn't turn in the swim tag you just didn't get a swim split, no penalties. Can't believe they've decided to use it as some sort of "safety" measure. If you don't know how many swimmers are going in, what good is turning in tags going to do?

I also hate that you have to pick "elite" or age group. It's not a pro race and it's actually watered down the "elite" field. Time to do away with that also. The women's "winner" didn't have the fastest time, Bree Myers who raced age group did and still wasn't mentioned in any of the news reports.

The Tinman seems to have stagnated over the years, and even slipped in quality a bit. I was shocked when I saw the entry fee this year, plus you still have to purchase a finishers shirt! (I do love the beer steins that all finishers get, they should just stick the competitor shirt and a finishers stein). It used to be a huge event that EVERYONE in the sport competed in. We always viewed it as the state championship because of the depth of the field, but everything seems to have lessened.

Tai - congratulations! You still ended up second. I couldn't wait to hear your version of the story after reading about it this morning.

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______________________________
Have you hugged Your Mom today?

Well, you'd be disappointed over the beer steins too -- this year it was just a pint glass with a tinman logo on it! Good point on the "real" female winner as well. Oh, congrats to Hairy Legs, who took his age group -- another Slowtwitch podium finisher!

Raul Boca clearly needs to take ownership of this race and put his special touches on it -- great value, USAT sanctioned, accurate timing, excellent t-shirt (included in the race cost), superb attention to the details, and last but not least, great post-race food and timely awards ceremony.

Either that or you can buy it and make Raul the race director! And Peaman the race announcer! Genius!

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FIST Certified Fitter
Salt Lake City, Utah

Yes, but now they can be stacked! Do you know how much room 14 of the old style mugs take in my cupboard! :~)

Aloha,

Larry

Hey Linda,

Yeah, I really enjoyed the race. It was a crazy yet exciting race for me until the results came in and then you had to just shake your head and wonder how they could screw up what had been until then a great and I mean great morning.

Started with the "night swim" start which saw some wave action but mainly the fact that you couldn't see anything and only had a narrow channel to stay in without running into the coral. I had a great swim and came out far ahead of where I usually am. The bike was a back and forth battle between me and Jeff Sanders from mile 2 on. We had some hangers on (not to put them down, but that's what we saw them as mentally as you try to picture yourself leaving them behind). But by halfway it was just Jeff and I see-sawing back and forth till T2 chasing the flashing blue lights of Jame's police escort. The run was the same way with the battle waging and pressure building as we took seconds of James's lead. And then we have people like Raul and Robert riding up to us giving us time checks "50 seconds," "it's down to 40, you can both still catch him," "30 seconds, one mile to go, PUSH!" We never caught him but there were number of occasions where I though Jeff would drop me and I'm sure that goes the other way around too. And the finish. Damn, I didn't know you could throw in so many surges and build that much speed in a finish stretch.

I agree with the swim tags being outdated and you made a good point about what good are they if you don't even know who started. At most races if they require you to check in out of the water via chip or whatever they use, they have BACK UP system just in case you loose your water ID. James mentioned this to Olga and she was like, oh that might have been a good idea. I personally don't like the idea of pinning something that can be pulled and is attached via sharp safety pin to myself during the swim. I tie-wrapped mine to my zipper.

I had another friend who's tag got ripped off on the swim. He searched and searched on the beach adn was stopped by voluteers until finally they gave up and let him go through. Did he find out he was DQ'd there? No, not until the finish.

And the penalties, if I was drafting and got a penalty I'd like that to show up on the results or at least be able to go and ask why I had a penalty. There was nothing on the results to indicate a penalty just the fact that our times were slow. Until last night I thought I had a 3 minute penalty. Now after going over my HR on my watch I had a 6 minute penalty and Jeff had a 3.

They need to figure this race out. It's a lot of fun and wouldn't take much to fix the bugs. I guess we'll see what happens next year. The TV coverage was almost hilarious. Talked to James today about it and we had a good laugh.

BTW, anyone know how to get ahold of Jeff Sanders?

on the real women's winner. I talked to Bree after the race and she fully understood that she couldn't win. It's a different race. Bree started later which meant she could: 1) see on the swim, 2) had lots of men to bike with and set tempo (Jenna is a fast swimmer and was basically alone on teh bike) 3) ran her ass off and had plenty of company. Jenna had built a big lead by T2 and just cruised the run not even putting in a kick at the finish. If Bree had been racing elite, either in front of or behind Jenna I'm sure Jenna would have pushed a little harder. At the same time Bree said she tried to switch divisions the day before and they wouldn't let her. Maybe she deserved to win, we'll never know with the current elite, age group system. The men's 4th place overall time, 3rd after James's DQ was an age grouper as well.

When did Raul start to use chip timing for his triathlons? As best I remember, he has always used JTL.

Raul still uses non-chip timing but his timing company is a little more suited to handle big races. Nothing against the company that did Tinman, but they specialize in running events and it shows. I know both of these guys and they are both great guys but Tinman is a hard race with all the waves and newcomers. Raul's races never have more than two waves and have about a third of the participants. Non-chip works, it just takes a little more TLC. Raul also overplans his races to the point that nothing could possibly go wrong.

Tai,

The results have now been removed from the Tinman website. Any chances they are changing the results????????

Aloha,

Larry

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______________________________
Have you hugged Your Mom today?

thanks, I actually found Jeff's # online but if you have his email that would be great too. James wanted to thank him for sticking up for him.

I've been trying to see the Tinman results but they never load for me. I doubth they will change the results at this point. I hate to admit it but at this point I don't think it would be the right idea to change anything. The crappy thing about this all is that they probably did just stick to all the rules they posted (although the drafting calls are strange), it's just that the rules didn't really make any sense and weren't planned for thouroughly. No one tried to screw anyone, it just ended up that way because of a unique combination of good intentions and bad planning.

They had swim tags before the start but not at the swim exit, so if you lost it on the swim like James your race was over.