Wim,

People here will believe that a 50-54 guy can indeed go that fast, so don't even bother...

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

I also believe a guy that age can go that fast, but not this one .....

common compare the faster ( and lot ) bike course times with the one @ UK .

That says it all. Joe Boness can do it, but he is consistent, this one is not

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http://www.wimdedoncker.be

I don't remember mentioning Joe's name...

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

no that is just an example of "an old guy" that CAN ride fast, just as Yves Tabarant CAN run like crazy ...

however this is about ZVIKA the imposter

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http://www.wimdedoncker.be

Well it might be true, but you really have no proof. Its impressive that this guy has already done 3IM this year(assuming he actually did the whole course of all of them)

[reply]Hi,

A friend of mine finished second in the age group 50-54 @ IM UK. The guy who won , Zvika Fishman won by a long way

Zvika finished around 30th OVERALL in a time of 10h30 on a brutal en slow course. He swam 1h 22 / [b]Biked the 24th fastest time 5h 28 [/b]( 2' faster then me biked 10' slower the the top pro's) and then ran 3h30.

I checked his previous results :

[font "Tahoma"][#000080][size 2]@ IM Frankfurt 2005: 614 in 11h 09 : 1h24 / 5h 43 ( 875th bike time/ 3h53[/size][/#000080][/font]
[font "Tahoma"][#000080][size 2]@ IM France 2005: 11h17 : 1h17 / 6h24 / 3h35[/size][/#000080][/font]
[font "Tahoma"][#000080][size 2]@ IM OOsten 2004 : 734th in 11h26 : 1h29 / 5h57 ( 1149th bike time / 3h53

[/size][/#000080][/font][font "Tahoma"][#000080][/#000080][/font]As you might have heard , The course goes south from Sherborne for 5 miles and then two loops of about 28 miles through Dorchester and several small villages before heading back through Sherborne. Continuing northwards for 9 miles before joining another loop which we circled twice before returning to base. So it was easie to skip either the top or bottom loop, there were no timing mats. What can my friend do ?? It was his dream to go to hawaii this year cause his son qualified also ..... No way a cheater like that can go to hawaii ..... suggestions ?[/reply]


The other weekend at the Sports Barn Sprint Tri in Chattanooga I had the second fastest bike split on the "very long" 9 mile bike section. There was a 50-54 year guy who beat my bike split by 4 seconds or so, and my only thought was that I 'll be hopefully that fast when I am 50+.
Cheers,
Herbert
Litespeed/QR

by the way the winner of the age group 40-44 did the same thing, but at the awards he admitted he made a mistake and missed a loop.... so the win went to the second guy

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http://www.wimdedoncker.be

I think it's unfair to accuse this person of cheating when you don't know for sure. It sucks if he did cheat, but sounds like no one will ever know for sure. Your friend is very close, his time will definitely come! :)

Has your friend contacted WTC about it, yet? This seems the next logical step.

Posting here doesn´t help his cause (not even sure about legal matters)

Axel

he has improved a lot within 2 months then if this is not a fraude.........

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http://www.wimdedoncker.be

Wimothy
Note that this Zvika bloke also improved his run, so he can argue that he got fitter since the other races. Granted it looks fishy, but if the UK rules are anything like those here in the US, then if you don't get your complaint in on race day then it's too late. We've had issues with a course cutter (who won money but not Kona slots) here in Penn-Jersey, but there was nothing anyone could do once the bike racks were pulled down and the geese were finishing off the discarded powergels.
You ought to get more evidence before you start yelling "fraud". Examining the results, it ought to be possible to find some MOP swimmer - fast bikers who came out of the water just before the person whom you're accusing. You can ask those bikers if they ever got overtaken.

Engineer-boy, there are plenty of 50-54 guys who can go 10:30 - and guess what - they can go sub 10h as well.

Wim, while I understand your frustration you're openly accusing someone of cheating without any evidence of him having cheated. You're just alleging that he can't ride that fast. What if he had been hampered by a physical condition in all the past races that had now been cured, or if he had ridden a 20-year old bike with drop bars and downtube shifters and now he had a Cervelo P3 fitted by Tom Demerly. My point is your argument it tenuous.

In my opinion unless you have something like a volunteer confirming that he didn't pass a checkpoint you don't have much ground to stand on.

That's really dissappointing but not that surprising. I was riding with (not drafting just in a line) big group of guys at the end of the fourth lap and we were all going past two AG women who were clearly on their 3rd lap. I'm not being arrogant but there was no way that at the speed they were going we'd only have been catching them now if they were on their fourth. Anyway they turned off with us in the confusion and I just felt really dissappointed for them - it looked like an innocent mistake and unless they went back they were going to get to Sherbourne and realised they were 15 miles short.

I really hope you're mate sorts this out and that they get timing mats for next year.

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

He improved his run time by 10% over Frankfurt (versus 4% improvement on the bike). Did he cut the course on the run as well?

Did he "train through" any of the other races? Was this his goal race?

How long were the loops he might have "missed"?

edit: A post above mentions the possibility of missing a 15 mile loop. That's about 45 minutes...would have led to a bike split over a half hour slower than Frankfurt.

he didn 't pass my friend .......

but he was to sad to really think about it .

If the differences weren't that big I would not have yelled : cheat, I would have just found it fishy, but now .....

Perhaps when he is confronted with it he might be as honnest as the bloke in the 40-44 age group.

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http://www.wimdedoncker.be

he did 4 IM , ran twice 3h53 en twice 3h35 about

Frankfurt is a much faster course he had the 800th bike time there
UK is as slow as it gets and 6k long , he had the 24rd bike time .



bottom loop 50k, top loop 22k, this seems the obvious , the top loop

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http://www.wimdedoncker.be

Gotta side with wim on this one...no way that guy did the course legit. But, it's probably too late to do anything about it, the time would have been at the awards/roll down. Your friend would have to protest to the race director AND WTC, but tell him not to hold his breath. He should also directly question the alleged "winner"...

Definitely sounds like he messed up. But will be hard to prove without his admitting it. Not sure a RD will go and ask "did you cheat?".

Can't believe they don't have timing maps out there.

Wim, the problem with that is that it's in your friend's interest to say that the person who beat him didn't pass him so it wouldn't carry much weight.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, just that you don't have any evidence to support the claim.

that's the biggest chance I think, confront him and then hope he has a contience. I doubt it though. he was waiving a big flag from israel making as much noise and fuzz as he could

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http://www.wimdedoncker.be

If he did miss 22k, he was going a little over 18 mph. Would have cut about 42 minutes off of his time, missing that loop. His bike split would be about 6:10...about 200th place. Sounds more reasonable than 24th, but I don't believe this is something you will be able to prove because of the "possibilities" people have raised. Maybe he will admit to it if asked.

let's hope....

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http://www.wimdedoncker.be

But then again....he was in the top 50 on his run. He obviously has "the engine". Who knows about what mechanical issues he has faced in races, what nutrition problems he's battled.

I'd be careful of going in yelling "You cheated!".

true but how about this , he can have skipped both the bottom AND top loop once w, so he only biked 115 k very very slow... heck I can run sub 3h then ...

anyway

hear this

Hi Wim,

The same thing happened to me a few years ago in Laguna Phuket when it was a qualifier. The guy that won my ag ran the 12k in 32:00, a full six minutes faster than Peter Reid. They didn't have timing mats in all the turn around points, but they did have people noting race numbers and his was missing on two of the turn around points which helped alot. Even when I confronted the guy he denied it. Fortunately the race director considered all the evidence and contacted IM and canceled his slot and awarded it to me. So there is hope for your friend.

I also researched the athlete that was in question and he never performed close to that level and I think that helped raise the doubt in the beginning, so I would start by sending all the data to race director a file a protest (it might be too late for an official protest).

Funny ending, the same guy was pulled off the bike course in Kona that year wearing a fake number...just as I was riding past him.

Good luck, Mitch

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http://www.wimdedoncker.be