Not sure what you are referencing, but i scanned the article and didn't read anything that would be cheating or even strange.



Styrrell

I talked to John after the race. He recognized the konaby2008 written on my calf. Very nice guy, I was glad to hear about his race.

Thanks for posting the link to his blog.

Yes, this giy cheated. He:

1. Intentionally dunked and hit people on the swim.

2. Intentionally drafted on the bike.

3. Seems very proud of 1&2.

I figured (hoped) he was joking about smacking people around in the swim, and as for drafting, he indicated that he got a draft even at the legal 3 metres, which is within the rules, no?

I don't think he was joking at all about the swim. As I understood the report, even though he tried to maintain the legal 3 (still with a draft), he was not able to the entire time and was penalized. I have mixed feelings about his pride in a new bike PR given these circumstances. On the other hand, he took a very strategic approach to the race and maybe that's what it's all about.

You may not know this but even riding legal distance you get a draft.

If conditions are right it can be up to 20 watts.

The guy said he rode legal.

Stuff happens in the swim and people get swum over. Big deal.

where do you get "intentionally" from?? Very few athletes will intentionally dunk a lapped swimmer, it just slows you down. On the bike he stayed the legal distance from the rider in front, except for when he let his concentration lapse, and he got dinged for it. Not the same as cheating.

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Gotta agree. In a perfect world there would be 200 people on closed roads. In real life where there are 1500ish people on the road, if all you're getting is a legal draft you're being pretty sportsmanlike.

As for the swim, I think he's exaggerating a bit, but it's physical. There are a lot of hands and feet out there and some of them are bound to make contact (another reason breaststroke should be illegal). Just pray that it isn't with your groin (sorry Jonas).

Nope, probably wasn't joking about the swim, but you can't always see the slower swimmers ahead of you until you are literally on top of them. I don't think it was intentional.

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Letting your 'concentration lapse' and gaining an advantage IS cheating, no matter which way you slice it.

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Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

He violated a rule, and served the penalty. I'm not saying what he did was right (as an aside, I know I have never gotten myself into that situation, and I don't know how your concentration lapses like that, but then I've never done an IM, esp not in the pro field) but to me there is nothing worse than being labelled a cheater.

Maybe my definition of cheating is somewhat harsher than yours. To me, cheating means that you knowingly and willfully violate the rules to gain an advantage, and always results in a DQ if detected by the officials (and the officials follow the rule book).

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You're right... I agree with you. However, this dude states clearly that for quite some distance he was in a pack and was drafting, then he finally got caught while he was drafting again in a headwind.

I'm just really ticked off because a good friend was out there racing him cleanly and after reading this it gets me fired up. I'm super pumped my buddy could destroy this dude and do it cleanly while this guy cheated.

{quote} "I think we represented spots 6-20 ish. this group was drafting, sadly. At times the group slowed down because no one wanted to go to the front and work. It was straight uproad cycling racing. I was thankful for the break and used it to pull myself together for a few miles." {/quote}

That's gay in my books and cheating in all the rule books. Just because others were doing it, doesn't mean it's OK... it means the others were cheating as well.

Trev

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Trev Williams
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[reply]You may not know this but even riding legal distance you get a draft.

If conditions are right it can be up to 20 watts.

The guy said he rode legal.

Stuff happens in the swim and people get swum over. Big deal.[/reply]

"at mile 107 the ref nailed me for drafting. I was. I said, I was sorry and thank you."

that doesn't sound like he rode legal the whole way.

Cheating involves a nefarious intent and some advance planning to intentionally violate rules and get away with it. A mistake is not cheating, it's a foul. Just like any other sport. In basketball, do we call a guy who "violates a rule" by bumping a shooter a "cheat"? No -- it's just a foul.

On the other hand, a baseball player who corks a bat is a cheat, because that act involves a nefarious intent to intentionally violate a rule and get away with it.

Drafting in an IM is only cheating when it rises to the level of an intentional, continuing effort to gain an advantage and get away with it. A mistake is just a foul.

Hi Cathy,

It doesn't say that he intentionally did it. I read the sentence as a guy who was trying his damndest to keep up with the other guy, and there was some unintentional "collateral damage". If you are swimming twice as fast as the back markers, there is no way you see them until you are right on top of them, so you get that result.

I know this from experience, as I've done the exact same thing, never on purpose. I get no joy from making other folks lives difficult. When possible, always tried to seek out the person(s) to apologise after the race. I can do that in the small local races where I know all of the competitors.

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So this only sounds like a lapse in concentration to you? Sounds like he's corking his bat for the run to me. I think you would have to agree.

{quote} "I think we represented spots 6-20 ish. this group was drafting, sadly. At times the group slowed down because no one wanted to go to the front and work. It was straight uproad cycling racing. I was thankful for the break and used it to pull myself together for a few miles." {/quote}



Trev

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Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

"Drafting in an IM is only cheating when it rises to the level of an intentional, continuing effort to gain an advantage and get away with it."

I'm thinking the paragraph that Triposer just posted qualifies as intentional cheating...at least he felt badly about it.

~Matt

I read it just the opposite.

clm

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clm
Nashville, TN
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I think cheating, by definition, implies an intent to gain an unfair advantage. Riders may draft for numerous reasons -- a lapse in concentration, ignorance of the rules, physical inability to pass within the required time limit, an overly congested course, error in judging distance between bikes, getting caught up in the moment (or in a pack) -- all of which, while infractions that may merit a penalty, are not cheating.

{quote} "I think we represented spots 6-20 ish. this group was drafting, sadly. At times the group slowed down because no one wanted to go to the front and work. It was straight uproad cycling racing. I was thankful for the break and used it to pull myself together for a few miles." {/quote}

Take the above quote in the context that you can get a legal draft. i.e. the required distance behind the rider in front. The pace slowed, so he got a break.

All I know is what this guy wrote in his blog. I wasn't there. I also know that some IM races are draft-fests, for all I know he was one of the participants. But without evidence, over and above reading between the lines in his blog, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt, as I take the starting position that everyone is honest and wants to hold their head high at the end of the day. My opinion will change for the worse based on my observations.

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Still, I wouldn't call it cheating. What were his options? Go off the front and pull the pack with him, to his detriment? Or drop off the back? Sometimes, when you get stuck in the pack, it's extremely difficult to get out of it, especially if the pack's large.

He stayed with the pack and got a four minute penalty, which probably more than offsets the advantage he gained by being in a pack. I fail to see how he got an unfair advantage.

That's a good way of looking at it. I agree with you.

Trev

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Trev Williams
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Isn't at least part of the problem here that the guy wrote a blog that was, shall we say, braggadocious. I mean, if you're going to toot your own horn like that, you better have a pretty clean race. I, for one, get tired of reading "race reports" that are nothing more than self-congradulatory pats on the back. As I said the other day in a post, if you have a great race, shut up and let other people do the bragging for you. Otherwise, it's meaningless. Think of the great pros that you admire out there. How many of them write this kind of crap? They don't. They report facts about their race. Not about how great they were.