I'll talk to my guys about this when I'm back in the office next week. We wrote & host a real-time event correlation app for the military that could easily do what I proposed. There are a few problems with re-purposing some of the technology, but I'm curious to see how much effort it would be for us to twist up something that could be tried as a proof of concept.

I'm more curious to see if there would actually be a market for something like this if it could be developed.

Mike, we do need to somehow meet at Nationals!

It is interesting that USAT rules are such that the officials on the course do not make the final call for penalties.
The head official does after the race. NAS gives the officials on the course the power to enforce on the spot calls.
So, are not all IM races NAS rules? If so, how do they not have the authority to do real time enforcement?

Again, lets meet at Nationals, and I will show you the horns under my hat.

I always have a flower by my bike in transistion. I also go off on the swim at 7:27 which is great!! Some old guy
gets to break the tape.

What time do the elites race? Any idea who is showing up?

Yep, being an official is tough, and I would much rather be racing. But, things do look a LOT different from a motorcycle
than on a bike. Thanks for being an official.

Dave

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Write John, he is always looking for new ways to improve his product.

Dave

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

> The thought of 2500 triathletes drafting and trying to ride in packs terrifies me...


What terrifies me is how patently unfair such an event (all age groups and genders together, draft legal) would be when you looked at all the individual scenarios that would unfold - how far it would be from an athletic contest. Talk about a Kona "Lottery" - which F25 is going to swim just fast enough to get nicely ensconced in a hammering pack of M35s led by her boyfriend while the girl who could ride away from her head to head and/or outrun her if they both expended equal energy up through T2 misses the train by a minute or two. Which 1:25 swimming M55 is going to get a 112 mile tow in a pack of eager M30s who haven't learned to swim yet, right up to the front of his AG wiping out the swim, bike and subsequently the run advantage of the competent swimmer and strong cyclist who would have won the age group by 2 hours in a fair race?

A redeeming feature of ITU racing is that it's head to head among a specific group of competitors, all essentially equally qualified to be there and chasing the same goal. I would expect anyone in favor of draft legal Ironman racing to be equally enthusiastic about starting the men and women in the Olympic triathlon together.

How about this for officiating?

When a violation of a drafting rule is spotted, the offender will be required to wear a child's blowup waterwing on one arm, which they would be required to blow up. This would reduce their aerodynamics significantly. Second violation, second waterwing. Third violation DQ with NO ride back to transition.

I believe that at the Wasa lake tri this year drafting violators had to don a waterwing, run out to the first water station, run back to the start, then start their run. I am not sure if anyone got the penalty, but there wasn't much drafting going on, and there was a huge line of bikes on the highway. Of course I never looked back, so maybe I had people riding my tail ;)

One argument in defense of some riders at IMC ... the road to Osooyos from OK falls was choc full of riders and open to traffic. I am sure there were many riders that would have liked to pass at times but felt unsure because of traffic conditions. I know that I usually get out of the water late and work my way up through the bike crowd, so I could see being accused of drafting when in truth I am just waiting for a safe spot to pass. Before I get flamed, I was not racing, any drafting I did last weekend involved barley and malt.

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Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)

Surely it would be possible, under such a scenario, to start the men and the women separately? In any case it wouldn't be "unfair", since "fair" is defined by the rules. If everyone starting the race agrees to race under a given set of rules, those rules say what is fair by definition. You certainly have a point that there would be some details to work out, but I think it might be fun. Here's a sample set of rules I am envisioning:

- A "competitive wave" and a "noncompetitive wave", you choose which one you want to race in. Waves are differentiated by different colored numbers, wristbands, or caps, or something.
- "Competitive wave" men and "competitive wave" women start together, or a few minutes apart. "Competitive wave" men and women are not allowed to work together on the bike.
- "Noncompetitive wave" starts a few minutes after the competitive wave. The noncompetitive wave races under a more relaxed set of rules.

It might work out. In any case it might be really fun to try!

What terrifies me is how patently unfair such an event (all age groups and genders together, draft legal) would be when you looked at all the individual scenarios that would unfold - how far it would be from an athletic contest. Talk about a Kona "Lottery" - which F25 is going to swim just fast enough to get nicely ensconced in a hammering pack of M35s led by her boyfriend while the girl who could ride away from her head to head and/or outrun her if they both expended equal energy up through T2 misses the train by a minute or two. Which 1:25 swimming M55 is going to get a 112 mile tow in a pack of eager M30s who haven't learned to swim yet, right up to the front of his AG wiping out the swim, bike and subsequently the run advantage of the competent swimmer and strong cyclist who would have won the age group by 2 hours in a fair race?

Skip, you make it sound like bridging gaps, covering your direct competition, attacking climbs & bombing descents for 4-7 hours is easy. Its still 180km for goodness sake...thats a TdF stage! The weaker cyclists will be spat out the back of such packs in no time...the "girl who could ride away from her head to head" will still ride away.

Judging by the look of most courses (France, Lanza et al being obvious exceptions), one could argue the current format does not reward the best complete cyclists either...but I don't want to get into that arguement, just sharing a different POV.

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blood, sweat...and big gears

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.''
- Muhammad Ali

I agree the rules define what is fair - I guess what I'm saying is it brings a lot more luck and/or arbitrary cooperation that not everyone has access to into play, at the expense of reward for simply being a well balanced swimmer/biker/runner, and I find that very unappealing. Sounds from your sample rules allowing the "noncompetitive" population to work together while enforcing rules for the self selected competitive group that you agree (assuming we are going to keep age-group and gender divisions) that mixed fields with drafting is not ideal for honorable competition.

It could work, but one problem I see with having a non-competitive draft legal option is that I don't think very many people will admit to themselves that they for all practical purposes should be in the non-competitive category. The very people who work so hard to break the rules and not get caught now would never put themselves in the tourist wave...as it stands, lots of them don't have a realistic chance of getting on podiums or garnering Kona slots (unless they do a world class job of cheating), but something's motivating them to take advantage, whether it's the quest for a PR or to be 53rd instead of 65th or what, I don't know. A tourist wave PR would probably not satisfy - heck they probably got into triathlon after they got tired of hearing that nobody "wins" a century ride :-)

They seem to manage at the Etape, and other Sportives... it's not that hard.

Face it, we are talking about two different kinds of people here. There are those that get caught in a position occassionally and work to get out of it, and then there are those that delibrately seek that position (drafting) and try to gain from it.

Mike,

And then there is a third group, and perhaps the fastest growing group - the people that really don't care about the drafting rules. Not that they are trying to gain advantage. They could really care less about the advantage. They are just going to finish and the time does not matter to them. They trained on the bike with friends and, . . oh . .here they are, out on the course, and they hook up with another group of friends and they can suffer along or enjoy the journey together. What real harm are these people causing? Who's going to DQ these folks?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Steve, yep, that is the issue. We have the same old rules when we have a total different set of customers and
expectations. This is why I continue to give inputs to USAT that they need to adjust their rules for the 100K members,
not what the 10K members wanted. Same thing is happening with swimming about wetsuits or not.
Their annual meeting shall be interesting. It will show if their organization is stuck in the past, or adjusts to
meet the need of the majority of their current customers. Why some folks seem to fight change is an interesting study.

So, what do you think about my challenge to all the pros in the next IM and 70.3 races that they ALL put MyAthlete GPS
tracking units on their bikes with 6 second pings? Do you think they REALLY want to solve this issue? If so,
John is ready to help. If not, what excuse do you think will be given?

Dave

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

If they started the ride together, in the same pack _like they do in a bike race_, sure. I'm talking about the girl who swims 1:02 and joins up with a pack of men in that group who will more than likely take it upon themselves to look after her as if they were US Postal and she was their own personal Lancette, assuming she's cute, and she settles in to ride 5:30 at 75%, while the girl who swims 1:10 and is a better rider is left to (maybe) lead her own group on the bike and drops 30 minutes by the end. Yes, girl #2 might get passed by some other pack and jump on, maybe bridge up to girl #1 eventually. Or not. Then there's girl #3 who swims 1:15 but could back it up with a 3:30 marathon, except she even missed girl #2's pack. And girl #4 who swam :55 and by the time she gets to the Husky station it's clear she shouldn't have bothered. Too much random luck for my taste. I enjoy triathlon because of the balance, because people can use their strengths to make up for their weaknesses, and get rewarded for developing all 3 disciplines. I also like bike racing, and sure, a free for all on the bike in an Ironman would be a wild and crazy time, I'm just not keen on the idea.

I'm sure a big part of my take on this, particularly in this thread since it's about one of my favorite races, is that as a decent swimmer and cyclist with a penchant for obeying the rules, I worked diligently in my 4 go-arounds at IMC to ride clean, in some of the biggest fields with swim splits right at the beginning of the peak T1 traffic flow - and it was very straightforward to do so. Certainly I had to adjust my effort, sometimes going quite a bit harder than I would have wanted to, sometimes holding back until I had the energy to make a pass stick. At times it was physically challenging, but it certainly wasn't difficult to know what to do and follow through. I certainly wasted some energy just in being angry at the cheaters. The problem is too many people have higher priorities than learning and following the rules and racing fairly, and enforcement is not strong enough to provide a sufficient deterrent.

Skip,

Great post.

You know the rich irony of what you are saying - is that is how this sport started out, people not knowing if they could do it. Not knowing if they could swim/bike/run all with out a break for x/y/z distances and survive. It was a "race", but it was also a tour into the unknown!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Like McDonalds for Frank?

Dave

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Dave -

The GPS units are a nice thought, but still won't solve the problem.

From the numbers I read, GPS is accurate (under the best of conditions) to somewhere between 1.0 (WAAS) and 2.5 (non-WAAS) meters. Put riders in the trees or around tall buildings and accuracy decreases.

This is for one receiver; put two of them together, and the best accuracy is now the compounded sum, or between 2 and 5 meters, which means that you're talking 20% to 50% of a 10 meter pro draft zone. So you could be legal and the GPSes say you're drafting, or the other way around.

What would putting MyAthletes on all the pros do? They would tell you that there is a group of pros all travelling along the same section of road at the same time, but can't say for sure whether they are really drafting or not.

You still need a body riding next to them to decide who is passing, who has been passed and hasn't dropped, who isn't passing but is legal, who is sitting in the draft zone.

Skip, I could come up with a retort for even scenario given, but I won't bother...its not my intention to push for a draft-legal IM, rather just support new ideas and formats that might alleviate the negativity this drafting issue brings to our sport.

Personally I feel the idea has merits for the same reason you enjoy the sport...balance. Success over that distance would require you to be a balanced swimmer, balanced cyclist (not a one-dimensional TTer) and balanced runner. Its kinda funny, of the three discplines the only one that doesn't allow drafting in it's single-sport long-distance version is swimming :)

Anyway, to each their own...

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blood, sweat...and big gears

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.''
- Muhammad Ali

Steve,

just to be clear, I was not advocating penalizing one group (delibrate draft seekers) and not the other (accidently drafters). Rules should be applied evenly and fair across the board whether you are an 8:30 finisher or a 16 hour finisher.
Who is to say that the 16 hour finisher isn't actually racing? In here we get all caught up on "you're only racing if you are going XX:XX fast" but I ahve a client that is in the 70+ age group and raced to the line last year in an Ironman, barely made the cutoff with a couple of minutes to spare and got a Kona slot, in part because most of those in his age group either didn't finish or didn't make the cutoff on a tough day. Point being, that guy/girl that is back in the 14+ hour range could still be racing and is just slower because of age.
Of course there are also those that are just out there to finish, ride with friends etc. Same rules apply to them also. It is a race right?

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

I'm guessing Etape and Sportives aren't exactly full of triathletes on tt bikes.

clm

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

"Yep, I saw NO drafting at Vancouver. What it like a 4 loop bike? And, I was in the second start because I just missed the swim.
So, I have no idea what happened as more folks got on the course, since I was on the run. But I am NOT suggesting there is no
drafting."

Classic - especially the "I have no idea what happened" part.

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"No more hurting people - Peace"

Again, think about what you just said. You are the head official. You are sitting behind a computer
and you see a big grouping of riders real close together and not changing position. Are they drafting?
Who knows. But now you have some data. So, you call to your motorcycles and tell them here comes a group
you want them to look at. Is this not better than NO DATA? You could also have video cameras start rolling.
Is this possibility not something that you think the Pros would riding maybe, just maybe a little differently
knowing that they are being watched, and the limited motorcycles are being used where there MIGHT
be an issue?

Dave

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Sorry, but I do not accuse folks of things like drafting unless I saw it FIRST HAND!!

Dave

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

GPS accuracy is to a fixed point on earth. The accuracy of 2 (or more) transponders to that fixed point in time may vary, but I don't think it would be on the same order as their location to the real geographical position. Again, I'd love to test this out and collect some data.

"With that said, those in the top eight who I witnessed race cleanly, were KYLE MARCOTTE, COURTNEY OGDEN (who was in the pack, but at least made an attempt to keep his distance), and BRYAN RHODES."

Edit: This statement does not mean that anyone who isn't listed cheated. I happen to know for a fact that Matt Lieto did not cheat.
Anyway, drafting is getting so blatant, for Pros and AGers. I am glad to see that some of the Pros manage to refrain from taking advantage of it, too. Great job to all you guys. You will be able to sleep better at night. The cheaters? I hope not.

Yep, I saw NO drafting at Vancouver.\\

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