Good excuse to post this, my favourite 'don't judge a book by its cover' video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho4Ms-V-Uig

Just replying to you, since you feel the need to take that off topic, but I have to ask:

You guys just keep that up for fun or do have your own dirty secrets you aren't ready to come out with?

She's applying for her professional license?? Everyone sure her times aren't legit?

So many people out there with fake educational credentials, diplomas and all.....

They all are "licensed", so they must be legit, right!?

There are lots of BOP "packfill" pros. They typically are top AGers who like the idea of saying they are a professional triathlete (without having it as their actual profession). At a race I did this summer, the "winners" of both the male and female Elite division didn't place in the top five OA. Pro does not equal World Class.


It's abundantly clear that she did not do the full swim in the listed time; that should be enough for a DSQ...leaving aside a question of intent and if she should receive a sanction beyond the DSQ.

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Most of her races she's top 5 for the swim, so a half decent swimmer, doesn't look like she can run or ride though, I would have thought if she was going to cheat there would be a few unusual bike/run splits? Although there was the OD race that was mentioned with the super fast 5km split. She's not immediately jumping out as a Julie Miller clone. Playing the devils advocate, people can have bad races and you can get strange timing discrepancies as a result of timing chip failures or incorrect marked out distances. I did a OD and the 2nd lap was almost 1km shorter, so if you look at my result it looked like I ran sub 40 (which I can't) and my 2nd lap was blisteringly quick (which it was't). Also typically I'd be top 10/20 out of 250 for the swim, but I've had disastereous, swims including one where I had major issues with my wetsuit and I finished dead last in the swim and dead last in my AG. So her 40min 70.3 swim could be an anomaly? As I said I'm playing the Devils advocate. She's a good swimmer, but not an elite swimmer capable of beating elite males, so something is amiss.

This is simply the greatest sporting achievement that I'm aware of in the past year. For an age group women to crush all the elite women and beat all of the elite men (crushing some of them as well) in such harsh conditions is absolutely amazing. I can only hope that this achievement gets all the press coverage and public awareness it deserves. Surely this athlete deserves to be in the spotlight.

I would agree with everything you've said here. Although there are a few anomalies in her results they don't necessarily scream "perpetual cheater" in the way Julie Miller's did. However, I think it is almost certain that she did not complete the full swim distance. Whether that was intentional or not, we'll probably never know. I guess the issue is whether someone going "unfeasibly but potentially achievably" fast is able to be dq'd? Being a swim I doubt it is possible to obtain the kind of photographic time stamped evidence that led to Julie Miller's demise. Is this all just going to go away with her remaining as world champion? Ironically, she could have swum almost 25 mins slower and still podiumed!

Is it clear whether any of the other female competitors are protesting? Does anyone know if Claudia Smith (2nd) or indeed Carolina Caravalho (who missed the podium by 1 place) have said anything publicly about this. If I was in their position I would certainly be asking questions.

Jodie Swallow crushed the female elite field, but AS beat her by 8 minutes. That's a lot more than a half decent swimmer!

I heard she also took chapstick from her crew on the run.

Ummm...no. See my sig line.

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I did a OD and the 2nd lap was almost 1km shorter, so if you look at my result it looked like I ran sub 40 (which I can't) and my 2nd lap was blisteringly quick (which it was't). //

Ok, but could you run on. a course where the back half is longer and negative split by several minutes? Her back half time suggests that she should have run a 34 10k in that race, sound reasonable to you? Did everyone in that race have a faster back half split, or did it look exactly like it should have, people fading and running slower times because it was longer in the second split.


And when you talk about her being a top 5 swimmer, you forgot to mention that is top 5 in her AG. This instance is "overall". Overall she is maybe a top 50 to 100+ swimmer, leaning more towards the 100 for a world championship event. You keep looking for legitimate reasons that this is a righteous swim. It was not. It may have been unintentional or she is unaware, but this swimmer did not do the course that the pros and other top AG'ers did that day.

I'd not classify the sig line as a sporting achievement, but rather one of other-worldly interceding of mankind history. As in...act of God. ;-)

I think unintentional and unaware are out the window when you protest, accept the award and do interviews about the great performance. It apears she wore a Garmin. So if she cut the course, and the evidence appears overwhelming there, she full well knows it.

This x1000. There is no rational explanation for that being a legit swim. None.

She seems to be a very good swimmer but nowhere near top of the food chain. Her performance on that day against not only her peers but against elite level athletes is just not possible in anyway, shape, or form.

It's like if a former Div III runner (but now just an AG'er) ran a marathon and posted the fastest time. He/she beat all the elite runners and beat all the AG runners by at least 25 minutes. Would anyone think that was possible? Or would the more likely conclusion be that he/she cut the course somewhere to post that time.

As someone else stated, this would likely be one of the single greatest sporting achievements of all time.

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Looking through the race pictures http://www.racephotonetwork.com/QPPlus/Proofs.aspx there's a woman who comes out just ahead of Ms. Stretton that looks like she's hanging it up. She's wearing a kit for a group out of Denton called KMF Endure. Anyone know this club/woman? Maybe she can shed some light on whether Ms. Stretton did one lap or two.

I did say I was playing the Devils advocate...

She didn't do the full course, she's not capable of beating the elite pros. Question is, did she make a genuine mistake or was this blatant course cutting. I suspect the latter because she hasn't questioned her result. I can swim, but I'm not quick enough to beat elite triathletes, if I did I'd want to know how and proffer an explanation before I was accused of cheating. She's accepted the result and stated in her race report what a good swim she had.

I had a good look at the race photos and also at a couple of very helpful photos that the Redman twitter account put out at the time.

A male elite Sketako comes out of the water (1hr13) closely followed by a male AG Grant (1hr01!) and then Ms Stretton (55m). There is a bit of a gap to the next out, female elite Pujol (1hr11) and next after that was the female AG that was actually DQ'd for an incomplete swim.

If Stretton did swim a 55 then she would have just missed catching Grant who was also in the process of completing a great (but not so great as Stretton) swim. If Stretton was coming in after only one lap, then it would be likely that Grant caught and passed Stretton not too long before exiting the water. Would be interesting to know if Grant remembers passing anyone just before completing his swim.

The photos from the Redman twitter account show 2 race officials (not just the volunteers guiding people out of the water) right down at the exit watching the speedy swimmers finish the swim. They must have realised then that something was very amiss with a couple of AG women coming out of the swim so early.

I am amazed that there appears to be next to nothing coming from other competitors, especially those most affected in the F30-34. Someone has maybe lost out on calling themselves World Champion and someone else has maybe lost out on a podium. Has someone else lost a sponsors bonus by not getting the official fastest swim time? I would have thought that the management of race teams who have team members affected by this (Watty Ink may be an example) would be pro-active in getting this remedied.

Also I have to observe that by not addressing the issue the ITU weakens itself in the eyes of the whole triathlon community. I genuinely hope that the current radio silence on this matter is due to some behind the scenes attempt to resolve this matter as it would be preposterous for an organisation putting on a World Championship event to simply shrug their shoulders and say that nothing can be done about something like this because there was no chip timing after the first loop of the swim.

Apparently they are currently analysing a file provided by the athlete, I have this on good authority.

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Hell, I could draft off her and I'm a fat old man! I've done 1:02 for a nice smooth IMNZ swim in ideal conditions. Her doing 55 minutes in rough water? NO WAY!

It embarrasses me to be a Kiwi.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

That will be interesting.. surely if you cheated you would have "lost" your GPS data?

I wonder if there is any footage of the swim/swim exit you should be able to roughly determine her speed from the footage.

If she has provided a GPS file as Salmon Steve suggests then I presume there should be a fairly non-arguable outcome very soon? I struggle to see that it will be anything other than a DQ, but I guess we'll see. Perhaps it will show whether a legitimate mistake was made and two short laps were completed? And although she was competing as a Kiwi, she is British I believe!

Everyone here is from somewhere else. White people have only been here for just over 200 years, and last I heard, the Maori only got here about 1300AD or so.
More people in NZ has not made it more good. :-(

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

Aint that the truth!