When you say "punch", do you mean a closed fist punch? That's what I think of when I hear punch. And he actually punched her in the face? With a running start? Wow. It's surprising she wasn't seriously injured.

. Awesomeness!

OK, Richard just sent me the video and asked me to post it so as the end the debates (or perhaps it will increase things). The problem is that i don't have a youtube account so if one of you guys who I personally know (as in, we met in person) sends me an email, I'll forward it to you to post on behalf of Richard.

I have my interpretation of what I see. I do see her randomly walking backwards into the field of play which as I articulated above, felt that her action sets up the entire incident. The video corroborates that (in my opinion). I do see him actively lift up his right arm to push/shove her out of his path so that he does not go into the oncoming lane. I can't tell if it is punch. It very well may be. What I see is that he "COULD" have swerved to his right to avoid her entirely, but stayed on his path towards the finish line.

Again just so that we all understand when you see the video, she is in the correct lane of outgoing traffic while he is across the double yellow line (running in the wrong direction).
If he stayed on the correct side of the run course there would never have been a collision. The finish line was about 20-30yrds further down the rd- so he was not IN the finishline, nor even close to finishing. He chose to take a line that was closest to the rt turn he was eventually going to make.

The bruise on her face (which I saw post race), the account of numerous witness', the photo, the video and the opinion of the head USAT official led to his DQ which we stand by.

I know that we have all grown to accept the "folklore" of a triathlon swim and the rough housing that goes on. But civility and sportsmanship are the things that we as RDs want our grass roots events to inspire.
Both Dev and I as well a lot of you have raced for >24 yrs and can remember when this never occurred or was tolerated.
And because it was not tolerated it did not happen.

Our focus is to provide that grass roots feel, family oriented experience but to make sure that all racers are safe and get the same challenge and accomplishment as the pros do. I thank Dev for recognizing the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure any race can go on, especially a long course one.

We do not do it for money but for the love of the sport.
So we will not tolerate unsportsmanlike behavior when it goes against the very foundation of what we stand for.

Every racer counts.

See all of you in IN, NY and our newest race in AZ!!! soon to be announced :)

Rich

regardless of your irrelevant opinion of my pace, I was redlining. I still managed to avoid another human being

apparently oceanlife is an acronym for bottom feeder

Now what would your direct relevant experience tell you if that guy had suddenly backed into you in the direction you were trying to swerve at the last minute?.

oceanlife pwned

pwned? like how you pwned that mile run?

The interesting thing for me will be just how many of the people who spent so much effort in making up scenarios to defend this assholes actions will actually come back and admit they were wrong.This woman ,as silly as her actions may have been,was assaulted on course by a guy who didn't give a damn about what he did and who he hurt to get to that finish line.That is inexcusable behavior in any civil society but yet here on ST many people CHOSE to turn the whole thing around to defend him and dump on the victim.Why am I not surprised ST,why am I not surprised?


----

Not replying to Nick specifically...

But we just learned a few things, now didn't we?
- Blair was on the wrong side of the road.
- Blair punched someone. Punched.
- Blair didn't appeal the DQ. And sent his medal back.
- The Letsrun diagram was wrong.
- Oceanlife and Needmoreair are similar douches as Blair.
- 'Being Blaired' is the gloss for getting a forearm shiver or punch from some a-hole trying to AG PR. Age Group PR. Consider that.

And things we knew:
- Blair didn't slow down
- Blair didn't stop to see if she was OK.
- She was backing up. And doing something that wasn't ok. But not on the wrong side of the road (see Letsrun diagram, even though it's not accurate, in her favor).

I won't get into Chivalry, as it's not pertinent. The bedrock in the argument is 1) it's every racer's responsibility to be safe. At first, I thought it was evenly split (him sprinting, her backing up). Now that we know he was on the wrong side of the road, it's his fault. And don't give me the 'tunnel vision' argument. Tunnel vision places every other racer, volunteer, and himself at risk. That's worse. 2) When you see someone not in the right place, slow down. I ran today in Switzerland, where motorcycles and cars zip out all over the place, plus plenty of pedestrian traffic. When you see something that looks funny, slow down, assess options, and err on the side of not punching someone; 3) if you do run into someone (sometimes it happens), stop, and ask / help. It's a human thing.

And for an AG-er, I find it incredible that he didn't stop. And find it even more incredible that the self-absorbed, race-fevered, PR-focused folks on this thread aren't more outraged, regardless of what happened to cause it, that he didn't stop. That's inexcusable.

I just learned a lot about how the culture of triathlon, PR's, power, measurement really manifest itself in people, humans. Not sure I saw that before for what it is.

- Oceanlife and Needmoreair are similar douches as Blair.

could not agree more

I am over 50, a woman, and started running 4 years ago so I am quite fine with my run yes.
this thread was not about athletic prowess - from your attitude I assume you are the overall winner every time you race? it is about doing the right thing which clearly you have no clue how to do

and even if you were the overall winner in every race you do it does not give you an excuse to be an ass. you continue to exude the self absorbed, obsessed obnoxiousness that turn many away from this sport.

I don't really care if this guy got DQ'd or punished for "ünsportsmanlike conduct". I'm not defending his actions, I just find it interesting he's being accused of punching her when what little evidence the public has can be skewed by emotion and self righteousness. Punching her doesn't sound reasonable, putting your hand up to protect yourself from a collision (regardless if you are initiating the contact or reaction to it) does sound reasonable. IF you did put up your arm, its also reasonable that it could be moved backwards after the impact and look similar to the photo without a punching motion.

Saying he punched her could easily damage his reputation outside of any website, blog or chat room and have real world consequences to his life, family and business. I think its a bad move to accuse him of doing that at this point, especially from the RD.

MTA: You are demonizing and destroying his character with a clear and cold mindset, but for some reason you fail to see that also.[/quote]


Excellent post.

Now sit back and wait to be called "douche" by some of our more creative posters.