I can't believe on the biggest tri forum we have no one has started a thread on this when something so ridiculous and controversial (in my opinion) happens in our sport, so here I go.
I can't even describe how this shit infuriates me. For the record, I'd barely even heard of Matt Sharpe before this occurred, so I couldn't care less who won or placed in the race - it's not about that. This is just such a black eye on our sport and it makes me irate.
The fact that he lost out on the podium and 3rd place prize money (I couldn't find a listing of how much, my guess is for a race like Maine 70.3 it would be in the $3K-$5K range) because the bottom of his zipper came out of the track is hard to imagine. But theoretically if he had won Hawaii and $120K and the same official was there, he would have been DQ'd and lost out on all that.
I won't even go into how ridiculous it is that we now even have rules that a guy cannot race shirtless. I went on a big ole unhinged rant on the USAT/Torso rule thread the other day about that.
And I'm not even talking about the fact that the rule even specificlly says that the official has the discretion to just give a warning. But some official in all their wisdom apparently on some power trip decided they should DQ him instead. In my opinion this official should be outed and excommunicated from our sport for life. They do not have the common sense or judgment required to be an official in this sport or any other.
I would be interested in hearing any person who thinks the rule is just to defend the rule to me and tell me how it should exist. He wasn't DQ'd because he exposed anything he shouldn't, or even that he had the zipper unzipped to the bottom. The reason it was a violation was because the zipper came out of its track at the bottom - that little part at the end came out of the track on the other side. He would have been fine if it was all the way down, as long as the zipper hadn't basically malfunctioned and come apart and separated by a few millimeters.
As someone who has been doing tris since 1985, when I hear something like this I am just so disgusted and quite frankly it makes me embarrassed for our sport. I would bet if you told anyone in a similar competitive sport like running or swimming, or just any ordinary Joe for that matter about this, they would laugh and say how the hell can you be involved in a sport that is run by such idiots.
Anybody care to defend it and tell me how full of shit I am?
I can't even describe how this shit infuriates me. For the record, I'd barely even heard of Matt Sharpe before this occurred, so I couldn't care less who won or placed in the race - it's not about that. This is just such a black eye on our sport and it makes me irate.
The fact that he lost out on the podium and 3rd place prize money (I couldn't find a listing of how much, my guess is for a race like Maine 70.3 it would be in the $3K-$5K range) because the bottom of his zipper came out of the track is hard to imagine. But theoretically if he had won Hawaii and $120K and the same official was there, he would have been DQ'd and lost out on all that.
I won't even go into how ridiculous it is that we now even have rules that a guy cannot race shirtless. I went on a big ole unhinged rant on the USAT/Torso rule thread the other day about that.
And I'm not even talking about the fact that the rule even specificlly says that the official has the discretion to just give a warning. But some official in all their wisdom apparently on some power trip decided they should DQ him instead. In my opinion this official should be outed and excommunicated from our sport for life. They do not have the common sense or judgment required to be an official in this sport or any other.
I would be interested in hearing any person who thinks the rule is just to defend the rule to me and tell me how it should exist. He wasn't DQ'd because he exposed anything he shouldn't, or even that he had the zipper unzipped to the bottom. The reason it was a violation was because the zipper came out of its track at the bottom - that little part at the end came out of the track on the other side. He would have been fine if it was all the way down, as long as the zipper hadn't basically malfunctioned and come apart and separated by a few millimeters.
As someone who has been doing tris since 1985, when I hear something like this I am just so disgusted and quite frankly it makes me embarrassed for our sport. I would bet if you told anyone in a similar competitive sport like running or swimming, or just any ordinary Joe for that matter about this, they would laugh and say how the hell can you be involved in a sport that is run by such idiots.
Anybody care to defend it and tell me how full of shit I am?