It appears that everyone is dancing around the real question here . . . is it okay for them to get the M dot tattoo?

They can have the "M", but not the "dot"

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Yes it should be the same, as regardless of your age you have to travel the same distance (140.6) with the same time limits (17 hours). Lots of endurance races have time/distance requirements before you can even try to participate. It doesn't matter if youre a 65 year old woman or 25 year old man, you have to demonstrate you have the ability to safely undergo the distance that you want to sign up for.

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2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

They've got all the data. You could easily go through it and figure out who DNF'd Ironmans by crossing the finish line too late or at least finished the swim too late, and then go back and look at their most recent 70.3 times. Let's say they found that people that took too long to finish an Ironman swim nearly always swam the 70.3 in 1.5 hours (I'm just guesstimating times here). Then great - You can't register for Ironman X until you finish a 70.3 swim in under 1.5 hours.

And it could be a huge business. Ironman could sell slots in "qualifier swims" for $100 a pop where you can register for an Ironman after completing just a 2.4 mile swim under a certain time on a course they set up for the weekend at a local lake. Make them races! I would sign up for one. Just get people verified they can swim such a huge distance before you put them in with 2,000 other people and then crashing all over the place on their bikes because they are too exhausted to see straight.

Edit - I just looked at the registration page for our local 5k open water swim and you can't even register until you fulfill this requirement. And there's no bike or run after it. "In order to register for the 5k all participants must show proof they can swim a mile in 35min or less."

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Maybe they should use an asterisk for the dot on the m-dot tattoo after this race!

Person should be DQ'd and pulled before leaving T1.

Just to see example wise.

Oldest men and women at Challenge Roth last year

M70+ Age group.

2 Finishers. Both swam under 1h20

W65+

1 Finisher. Swam 1:21


What I don't want to see over time is the watering down of the event. Cut offs are there for a reason. Everyone knows them before we start. If you have a complete disaster and are outside a cut off, be that swim, bike or run. Then you have to be able to cope with it. It's hard, but you will always come out stronger from failure than success.

You can ALWAYS come back. It's not a once in a lifetime thing.

Still cheating, whether they “self-DQ”, which doesn’t sound like what happened here, or run through the finish, get the finisher pic, medal and hat. Sounds like the typical rationalization of cheaters everywhere “ not cheating, just wanted to experience the feeling etc”. Had a rough 1st loop on the swim = meet reality. I very much a mid/back packer, have had some rough swims. It never entered my mind in any way to think, I will just cut the course.

If I sound harsh, well cheaters are always going to cheat, no real impact on me. But since you asked, nope, not Ok with the cheater mentality.

Absolutely cheating and should not go past the swim. Should have tried to do that 2nd lap, perhaps it got faster. But no way they keep going after missing a cutoff, and going through the finish line and getting a "finisher" shirt and medal is really bad form too..

I mean you can not care what this person does, but doesn't make it right. Cutoffs are there for a reason, so to skip one is blatant cheating plain and simple...

If you can’t do an IM swim in 2hrs, with a wetsuit, you shouldn’t be doing IM’s.

Tough one. I did my first last year and although I knew I could swim the distance with time in hand, there are more factors in play on the day.

I trained hard for 24 weeks, paid for the race, flights for me and the family, hotels, coach fares etc. If I would have blown the race by an ill-timed cramp or panic attack, I would have been devastated for myself and my family.

If it had happened to me, I would have liked to continue but would not go down the chute or pick up any swag. At least I would have gotten more out of the day and the family would get to see me on the course and not back at the hotel at 8am!

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Yeah this.

I'm not anally retentive about this, but cutting a loop because you're going to make the cut-off opens up a can of worms. You had a situation at the worlds in Australia a few years ago where a lot of people "mistakenly" missed a 2nd small loop that was a loop of the main bike course. I'm not sure how many did it, at least 20, none of whom declared it upon dismounting or post race. It was left to the RD to go through the results and look at the anomolies. I think people feigned ignorance, but when your bike computer shows distance that is well short, surely you'd know... It needs to be a black and white rule, no grey area other wise it just becomes a clusterfuck. What if did 1 swim lap, then overtook people on the bike who'd done the correct distance.

The friend should've stashed some swim fins in the water then ditched them just before the end of the swim. If done correctly this moral conundrum you speak of ceases to exist

No, I would not be ok with it. Many courses will let you complete the race if you come in after the swim cutoff (IM FLA, Alcatraz), but give you a DNF.

Not to mention if you skip the second loop you may put volunteers and the RD at risk trying to find out if/where you are still in the water, in trouble, etc. I know the timing chip would say you entered T1 but you never know how that's really communicated

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

If they cut the course and cross the finish line, they are cheating scum pure and simple. If they DNF the swim but continue for a long training day without crossing the finish line, it is a technical foul that is between them and WTC.

Absolutely no way anyone should do something like this.

First lap was slow? Grit your teeth and pick up the pace on the second lap! Still miss the 2:20 cutoff (which is very lenient)? Better work some more on your swim before your next IM.

The RD is putting on a race, not a training session.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Finman 2.0

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2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

So, I normally don't care about stuff like that. You do you...
BUT...
This guy QUIT!
He didn't even try.
When I did my first 70.3, I was limping along (later diagnosed with a stress fracture) but I didn't quit. My time sucked, but I finished.

This guy didn't even try. He just quit.
And for that.... No, what he did was wrong.

And still deserving of an M-dot tattoo as well...

There are races where it has been explicitly stipulated in the rules ahead of time that:

If someone misses an intermediate bike cut-off on a multi-lap course they will not be allowed to continue riding but may complete the run if they’d like. They are DQd or DNFd, of course.

I don’t know if there are rules in the WTC rule book that address the OP’s situation directly, but I think that in the same way someone can finish what remains of the race and can even cross the line at the end, but they should not collect hardware or ever claim that they finished the race.

Of course it's still cheating. You either do the full course or you don't. Period!

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Trust me I’m a doctor!
Well, I have a PhD :-)

Had this at a local sprint tri

Got a mechanical on the bike - unable to fix it on the side of the road.

Ended up getting a lift in the back of a truck to t2. Self declared dnf to the marshals. Did the 5k run after just to salvage something from the day even though i skipped half the bike.

I think there is a big moral difference between making the most of a shitty situation and deliberately cheating to make a cutoff...

 

i have done this in a cyclocross race. broke main bike and pit bike on first 2 laps. asked if i could grab a wheel from my car and keep racing and dq myself at finish. no problem. got the last 30 mins of intensity in, pulled off at the finish, thanked the organizer, all was fine.

In one of my first triathlons i got really bad cramp in my foot and was struggling to swim. A lifeguard pulled me out of the lake and took me back to swim exit. I explained the situation to an official and asked if i could continue the race, he agreed, and i completed it, but was subsequently DQ'd. My conscience is clear, i don't think i cheated, i didn't even officially finish the race.

I did have an opportunity to cheat though, they took me to the swim exit, and i was arriving around the same time as the swim leaders, i could have easily joined them going into T1, and out on the bike, and i don't think anyone would have ever known.

Something that doesn't seem to have been mentioned. Closed course or not?

Closed course - you 'win' the right to be on there by finishing each segment within the cut off, otherwise you can't continue.

Open course. Take your race number and timing chip off and pedal for your life, nothing to stop you.