needmoreair wrote:
motoguy128 wrote:
I still have only see visual evidence of a collision, not a "punch" or someone actively "hitting" another person. I'm seeing poor judgement by 2 individuals. One clearly very fatigued at the end of the race and another not paying much attention after a long but relatively leisurely swim and ride based on her descriptions.
How's that for a summary?
So we're saying here that he should have somehow came to a stop, jumped over her, swerved into... potentially... on coming runner on the other side of the roadway, or . I'm not saying this dude is a really nice guy, but he was thrown into a very bad situation that he didn't create and made some attempt to avoid by moving all the way across the lane.
Until there's a video, not much else can be concluded.
Nobody thinks this guy had a right be be a little upset that he was disqualified because another competitor stepped in front of him and blocked his way?
Sounds like a good summary of the event.
Doesn't take into account the blog and the woman's account later on, which I think is the real issue and the driving force behind this entire episode.
This guy should 100% be upset he was DQed. If nothing else, he should push for her DQ as well. She should be upset for getting knocked down if she wants. That's never fun either.
Until there's definitive proof of malice, I 100% believe this incident should have never left the course. No DQs for the man, no DQs for the woman. Next time don't walk backwards onto race courses.
In the event there is definitive proof of malice, then let the governing bodies have their way. But no one who has seen nothing but a picture and bought into some rhetoric can say with any conviction whatsoever that malice did take place. Such an assumption is merely the result of blindly buying into some viral "marketing". And as I keep repeating, THAT is the real issue.
YES, THIS^ ... a reasonable opinion!
I'm a female runner (yes, a visitor from the dreaded Letsrun.com) so, I realize that I'm an outsider to triathlon and to this forum, but having skimmed through both this thread and the one on Letsrun.com, I'm honestly kind of surprised at the amount of vitriol on this forum directed towards the guy in this incident.
Yes, I can agree that in the grand scheme of things, it probably wouldn't have killed the guy to slow down drastically or do whatever he had to do to completely avoid this woman - but, really, are this many of you so "relaxed" about racing that if it were your PR on the line, you wouldn't have made a similar decision/error in that moment?Why is there so much sympathy for a woman who is 1) chatting with spectators during a race(!) the clock is ticking, isn't it??? 2) obliviously in someone's way who is actually racing, ie. cares about finish time/place 3) cries about being knocked down.
Do we really live in a world now where it is "narcissistic" to participate in athletic endeavors and care a lot about your performance? What happened to dedication, passion and hard work to push your limits, regardless of your level of talent? Do we not respect "giving a crap" anymore? I think it's sort of douchey to imply that because he was only going 7:30 pace, this somehow makes it "less okay" for him to care about his results. Conversely, if he had been the overall race winner, it wouldn't have made the fact that he ran into the woman any better or worse. He's just some guy (slower than some of you, faster than others) who really really wanted to do well in this race, and made a somewhat poor decision as a result. It's not as if the guy was doing EPO... evidence for the fact that he intentionally hurt this woman is circumstantial, AT BEST.
I sort of wonder if people's reactions to this incident reflect the fact that we are becoming, not the "slowest" generation (per WSJ article), but just the weakest generation. There's the prevailing mindset now that people participate in races to feel good about themselves, that we can only be bothered to complete marathons if it's "for cancer" or "to be inspiring". Hey, if you get tired, take a walking break, it's cool! How dare bad things happen, like collisions, falls or bike crashes. Those things happen all of the time to elites and sub-elites, and even though those people may depend on the sport for their well-being, they actually do NOT cry and freak out and assess blame. They get up and finish the race, why can't we do the same?
The world is a tough place. For people who think that getting knocked down (in a race where you clearly didn't care all that much about your finish time, and in an incident that was partially your own fault) is SUCH a moral outrage, how do you make it through the day???
