In Reply To:
Just two ideas and not sure if they are of any use but:
- Allow the athletes in the pro wave to police themselves. If a referee gets a complaint about an athlete or athletes from 3 or more pros then thats a penalty. However the pro's who make the complaint must be willing to put thier name to the complaint. Unfortuantely this relies on the integrity of the athletes to not abuse the system.
Here's a story for you, related to this thread...
In early 2006, I was riding very strong, and had an injury which really affected my running. I needed to get a gap on the bike, so I was especially sensitive to cheaters. I did a non-drafting race, which I will not state the name, but it was NOT an M-dot event. I had a decent swim, with 3 riders up in front of me, one off the front, 2 others clearly working together. There were no officials on the course, unlike previous years for this race, and there was a good amount of money which only went 3 deep.
I caught the 2nd and 3rd place riders by the end of the first loop of 2, (out and backs, so everyone can see everyone), and immediately they went to my wheel. I tried to break away, and they would work together to keep me right with them. They both sat in my draft, and I literally sat up and confronted them about it 2 times in the race. Their response was nothing. No words, no movements, nothing. The second time I confronted them, I was upset, and made it clear. Still nothing.
They continued to stay in the draft, no matter the moves I made. We came off the bike, and one of them pulled away from me, while the other fell back on the run. Another ride who rode clean and alone, caught me and went on to get second, the cheater 3rd, and me 4th, and out of the money. Immediately after crossing the finish line, I went to the race director to tell him the situation, as now I was directly affected monetarily.
The race director believed me, and went thru the following:
- First, he was going to give the cheater a 3 min penalty, causing him to move to 5th place. The cheater threw a major fit, calling me a "f--king a--hole" to his friends, right in front of my soon-to-be-wife.
- After the RD realized he was in a situation of my word against his, he decided to tie us. The cheater threw a fit because it was still going to cost him money.
- After hearing this, he gathered all the elites, (about 10-12 of us), and held a meeting before the awards. I explained what happened in the meeting, including the fact that I caught them, never was able to drop them, confronted them twice, and yet no response. He asked everyone if they saw cheating. Every single elite stated something to the effect of, "Did it look like they were drafting? Yes. Can we be for sure? No, because we weren't right there."
No one was willing to stand up and call them out. In the end it was still their word against mine. - In the end, the RD did not change the results. He added money to the prize purse, and gave it to me for 4th place. I went thru the awards, accepted the check, and immediately following that walked right back up to the RD and gave him the check back. I told him "The point was never the money. I wanted those guys to know I will not accept cheating and I will call them out for it." The race was also a benefit for a charity organization, and I did not want to take money from the charity because of a cheater. (Not so ironically, one of those cheaters ended up getting disqualified after winning another race, for cheating. Hmmm).
So the point is, asking the athletes to police themselves is not realistic. These guys don't want to make themselves targets against the cheaters, and are worried about retaliation or other negative consequences from speaking out.
Jim Vance
http://TodaysPlan.com.au (Disclosure: I am contracted with Today's Plan)
http://www.CoachVance.com/ Twitter @jimvance
