Perhaps you should get in contact with him again, and ask him why any proof that she is a very fast swimmer is at all relevant to this issue.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

A couple of observations:

1. ... she is a very fast swimmer ... Define "a very fast swimmer" please. If I were to "rate" her swimming abilities, based on the results that are linked to elsewhere in this thread I'd agree - she seems like a fast swimmer. As everyone seems to agree - however - being a very fast swimmer doesnt quite cut it to finish this course in 55mins. She would have to be world class / olympian.

2 ... abundant proof ... I'd like to know what proof this is. Is it her own statement of her abilities? Her coach's statement? Screenshots from her Garmin?

3. Possibly the most relevant: The difficulty with "cheat-allegations" such as this one (based largely on the performance being "too good to be true"): how good a swimmer would she need to be to make it plausible she could swim 55min in those conditions? I dont know who Mr. Armstrong is, and what standards he could have based his conclusions on, but others on this board seem to argue she would need to swim in the 16-17's for 1500m LC. Given how exceptional this performance would be, I find it kinda hard to believe that she has been given a pass by providing "abundant proof shee is a very fast swimmer", and no proof relating to the swim in question (from others previous contact with her, she supposedly wore a Garmin?) I may be reading to much into the statement quoted from Mr Armstrong, but it indicates he has not been provided with proof that she swam the entire course.

Would Andrew Armstrong care to join in this discussion? I would love to hear him read the list of professionals that Amy Stretton beat with a straight face. "Amy Stretton is a faster swimmer than Davide Giardini, Amy Stretton is a faster swimmer than Dylan Mcneice, Amy Stretton is a faster swimmer than Rafael Ribeiro, Amy Stretton is a faster swimmer than..."

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Tony
http://www.triathleteguru.com

Tell Amy Hi for us and to come on to talk about this.

abundant proof

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The issue I have is this. ITU does a really good job with it's appeals process. It has to because when you file a protest it becomes basically a legal binding agreement (money changes hands, goes to race jury, etc).

So then it becomes a burden of proof on RD to prove she cheated. And this course design did a very very poor job of providing evidence. Hell wasnt it the timing folks that red flagged the split as initial DQ. No official saw her cut or miss part of swim, etc.

So this guy is standing with a pissed off athlete with like no evidence to point to that proves she cheated. That's the issue. Just thinking it's an impossible feat isn't good enough when results are appealed.

So shame on this race, RD for what sounds like poor course design.

Now what kinda irks me as a coach is if they went and got further info from her coach etc. That to me is a bullshit gossip step. How can her coach provide any evidence other than hearsay.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I think the only proof needed that this is not a legit swim is the fact that she outswam Jodie Swallow.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

You can rag on the race director all you want, but Mother Nature is who you need to focus on.

2 of the course bouy's (sighting bouys on the return) were blow off the course almost as soon as the gun went off. The wind/wave chop was intense and the officials, volunteers, and RD were more worried about people drowning than people cheating. In these conditions it is better to focus on safety. Don't you think?

Yes, but now that everyone is safe and it is clear someone cheated it is better to make sure the obvious cheater is DQ'd. Don't you think?

Agreed. I think we're beyond the point where we have to worry about any drownings during this swim, unless they changed the cutoff times dramatically for this race.

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Too old to go pro but doing it anyway
http://instagram.com/tgarvey4

But you are proving my point. The race and RD had zero self checking parameters. So when you then say they focused on safety (which I'm not debating what they should have done), they then lose any evidence to prove someone cheated.

So what I'm saying is if you as a RD and race get called on a protest, the burden is then on the RD to prove an athlete cheated. In this scenario, based on everything I've read, the RD had zero proof to point to that showed she cheated. "Thinking" she cheated isn't good enough at the ITU officiated event. That's exactly why there is an appeals policy and the structured steps for it.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

The ST community has a tendency to discount the WTC World Championships as less (even much less) than "real" World Championships, but frankly, I don't see evidence of the same level of officiating at ITU races as I do at WTC. WTC took the JM cheating seriously and acted quickly and appropriately. I'm rather surprised to see ITU do nothing in this case. Not a WTC fanboy, but I think I like them more than ITU.

[NB: However, WTC did nothing about JM's highly suspicious swim time in Whistler. Didn't she post a 57 min swim time? No way she did that, but it would have been far more difficult to prove cheating on the swim course than it did on the run.]

Thanks for trying to help clear this up and posting the link.

If you talk to Amy again about this, maybe you could try to get answers to a couple of questions.

1. Why doesn't the activity have a map included, if it was an open water swim? Is the map available?

2. Can you explain why the distance is such a round number, and shorter than other athletes have as their swim distances on the same course? Also, the start time in the picture is 7:44am, which is exactly the time of her wave's scheduled start time. Both seem to be odd and a bit coincidental. Of course, per the latter, the race may have been bang on schedule, but this often does not happen.

ETA: Per post #430 below, the wave ahead of her left at 7:43am, so 2 mins late. This means Amy's wave actually started at 7:46am, not 7:44am. Of course her Garmin time may have been 2 mins slow, but now that would be even more coincidental.

3. How does she explain beating the best swimming male pros in the world? She is a strong swimmer, no doubt, but nothing in her swimming history points to this ability.

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You seem to want to help clear this up. It is very obvious she did not complete the prescribed course. The course was easy to cut short, given the missing sighting buoy and - as a result - athletes getting very close to each other going opposite directions. Everyone was having a bad day compared to their pre-race expectations. Indeed, the fastest female AG time after Amy's was 1:19:40, which she 'bettered' by 25 minutes! Therefore, when you're not meeting your own expectations, it would be tempting to cut off some of the course to compensate and get 'back on track'. The problem is, Amy underestimated how badly everyone else was doing, and also underestimated how much time she was saving herself by cutting the course. Hence the massive red flags.

It is clear Amy has dug her heels in and is going to stick to her story. The problem is no-one believes her. No-one here on ST. Not Dan. Not Tri NZ and the other NZ teammates, and I suspect not you, if you've really looked at the results carefully.

What do you believe?

"now that everyone is safe and it is clear someone cheated it is better to make sure the obvious cheater is DQ'd. Don't you think?"

i asked you all, early in the thread, not to ascribe motive to what might or might not be a course not properly traversed by an athlete. in the history of this reader forum we've had many, many cases of people not following the prescribed course. sometimes it's deliberate cheating. sometimes it's inadvertent cutting of the course.

now, yes, i know that when the person in question is "confronted" with the "truth" some of you consider it evidence of guilt when that person doesn't knuckle under to your demands. nevertheless, i promise you (because i know how this always works) bans are coming. you will stand on principle. you will demand your rights. you will demand that i and everyone stipulate to your truth, your sense of what's best, highest, holiest.

and when you do so, you and your principles will reading and posting somewhere, but not here.

you can talk about this race, this effort, you can analyze it, and you can state your opinion, including your opinion that the person in question could not have swum the entire course. what you can't do is demand that i and everyone agree with you that it was intentional, and the very word "cheat" implies intent.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The best part of this is that I finally have a fool proof way to improve my swim at ITU events. No more hours wasted at the pool. Hell I can package this up and sell it as a click-bait coaching system. Improve your swim in just 10 easy minutes. Triathletes hate this simple trick.

Plus the more events I do it at the easier it will be to point back to previous cheated results as proof that I am a fast swimmer.

This should all be in pink.

If inadvertent, but vehemently denying any wrong doing, what conclusions do you draw? I asked much earlier in this thread, and nobody responded, if there has EVER been an example of a female age grouper having the best swim time in a world championship event. If not, and this is truly a legit performance, everyone in the triathlon world should know about Amy Stretton and the most amazing swim ever completed.

I haven't checked the 'Cry like a little biatch' thread. Have any of the male pros from that race posted about getting fish-chicked?

Earlier in the thread this was posted:

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Tony
http://www.triathleteguru.com

That's a curious response from ITU, saying they have proof she is a fast swimmer is a complete deflection from actually addressing the question. Her being a fast swimmer isn't in dispute.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

nc452010 wrote:

I haven't checked the 'Cry like a little biatch' thread. Have any of the male pros from that race posted about getting fish-chicked?

Davide Giardini was impressed by her swim.

https://twitter.com/...s/791845547887910914

She's gotten away with it folks. Her reputation will be forever damaged, but given Armstrong's statement she's not getting DQd barring the emergence of incriminating photos or eyewitnesses or the Russian's hacking her Garmin Connect account. Think about the piles of evidence it took to DQ Miller and how similar piles wasn't enough to DQ Rossi.

but you said female, missed that! I would guess the answer to your question is a big fat NO!

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Tony
http://www.triathleteguru.com

to Answer part of question # 2, I went off in the wave directly ahead of her group and i started my watch at 7:43 (2 minutes later than what our wave start time was)

Your last sentence sums it up- why not have Slowman interview her about her most amazing swim ever? Let's assume it's legit, why not give her the platform to tell her blow by blow of the swim, where she outswam everyone in a world championship event, and the training that went into it, and how she took her amazing swim to an ulitimate 1st place AG female finish and pro card? It's a pretty amazing story, if true, and a warrants a front page ST article.

The phrase, you can't win a tri in the swim, but you can surely lose it, now can be rewritten!

Thanks for the info. Have edited my earlier post to fulla accordingly.

^This.

It sucks with people getting screwed out of podiums, it is wrong, but it is what it is. Life isn't fair, grab a helmet. In the end, I would like nothing better than for her to take her pro card. It will provide all of the info we need, as well as make her accessible for interviews etc.