I'd rather the athletes serves the damn penalty like when they're supposed to, or we introduce the office linebacker to remove them from the course. ;)

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Do you really think it's fair to end someone's race over an arbitrary rule? Neither the racer nor the official can measure the distance between riders with any sort of accuracy.

He ended his race by failing to serve his penalty. It's not arbitrary.

Now you could argue that the enforcement may be arbitrary, but that's not what we're talking about.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Ok, yes, we all know that. We're past that now. Now this thread is talking about the root cause of that decision, where an entirely arbitrary penalty can end your race to the point where you might as well not serve it because in many cases you might as well be disqualified.

I think for most pro drafting infractions, especially those surrounding slotting in and such, would be way better served by having a stop and go penalty.

Tell that to Sebi after he flies over from germany to race at st George, and gets hit with 5 minute penalty that costs him the win, from a guy on a motorcycle that probably has never even raced before.
I guarantee any of us would have seen what Sebi did and ignored it. We all know Sebi is doing his best not to draft.
But let’s say the ref just thinks he’s breaking a rule, at least he can decide to what level the guy is breaking a rule. This five minute crap for all of us is a joke. Like I’m swimmer says we don’t even really know for sure what the ref thinks is 12 meters..
I believe joe, Sebi and Daniel, this year would have all got stop and goes and it would have been fair enough and they could have kept racing.
Or Jesse Thomas trains for months for a Europe worlds flies across the ocean and has some ref basically disqualify him, because on some big hill they all bunched up.

Dude, seriously do not care if it's Sebastian Kienle, Daniel Baekkergard, or Joe Skipper. You're a professional, if it's your livelihood, you follow the damn rules and serve your penalty.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Is it possible we could discuss if the current penalty rules are the best solution, or perhaps there might be some changes that would make them less crippling? For example, would you consider it excessive if every penalty in rugby was a yellow card?

I'm guessing you don't know about the various forms of Rugby beyond XVs. There's 10s and 7s. So the card system and penalty system remains. But the time is normalized. For example in 7s, a Yellow is 2 minutes off the pitch.

So normalizing the penalty for the distance raced is completely a valid discussion.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Sure, and I think that's already done to some degree. But is every penalty a card and require time off? Or are there some that are less severe?

Well, generally in that sport, I use it specifically because I'm very well versed in the judicial system and application of the "laws".

Regular penalties are of the same value no matter the form. The difference is whether the professional foul or repeated infringement that leads to a card is a time value that is normalized.

In the current rules of triathlon, entering the draft zone and failing to overtake is a professional foul.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Watched Lionel talking about the current rule claiming there is a significant benefit so I would definitely believe every one do these riders is riding right at that distance leaving no margin for error in breaking the rule.

Time to extend the draft zone is sounds like and then it makes it really easy to have a range of penalties.

Also I have had a few friends with drafting penalties (no pros) and no one ever believes they are drafting it was always the circumstances.

perhaps a rule that 'refs' do 3 races as prerequisite prior to certification. I see all training has gone virtual now...

Perhaps as a rule all those riding indoors should familiarize themselves with the legal distance required?
You don’t just go out and ‘know’ how far back you should be. Experience necessary.

Yes, 5 min is game over for fast AG and PRO, but on the other hand they should know best.
Regardless, I think the 2 min at Challenge races is the better penalty for 1/2 distance.

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Yeah, the only triathlon I've watched in the past 10 years was the recent one where they went around a NASCAR track or something, and a huge number of them were right on the margins. I'd argue some of them on the wrong side of it it.

I mentioned in the IMSG thread that I thought they needed to change the penalty time by race distance, 5min being too much for 70.3, so I support this idea. I do recall at Challenge Daytona Anne Haug got a penalty and only had ~2ish minutes to serve, she still got 2nd, so 5min is a WTC rule (not USAT)?

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

This is what we are talking about it seems athlete tried to pass and could not do it , like with bekekard or anne haug in daytona who took too much time to pass . rule says 5 min penalty no other option. Now if refere has seen this guy drafting all the time he can give him 5 min . If he saw this guy was riding fair all the time stop and go penalty .

Well the rule is that once you enter the draft zone, you are required to overtake the rider ahead of you within a given time period. (On the USAT site it said 15 seconds) He entered the draft zone but did not attempt to pass, which makes it a violation.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

My understanding is that he entered the draft zone because everyone break-checked in front of him because of the guy who passed and then slowed down.

Here is what we can, and should do.

For every penalty you got to run additional 3/4 of a mile. Enforced just before the finish line chute so the finish isn't "ruined". And if it's missed it can be enforced at the finish line either go back 3/8 of a mile and run back, or a 3/4 mile loop past the finish line and back.

That is what he told me happened. Then I would guess an official with good intentions probably not much experience, and not understanding the implications, hit him with a penalty. boom race over. its crazy. And this type of thing happens to us as pointy end racers too.

If a ref is poorly trained, do not blame the rule, blame the organisation and lobby for better ref training.

If a penality is too harsh, do not blame the ref, blame the organisation and lobby for better proportionality.

If people bunch up on a hill, or abort a pass entering a draft zone for whatever reason, unless they were unaware of what was going on it means they decided following the rule did not align with how they wanted to manage their race at this very moment. There is always a way out, it might not be convinient, you might not want to burn the matches, but the option is there.

If the penality is not harsh enough more will break the rule. Personally, I'm satisfied with the way things are.

IMO, that’s the exact point of the rule. Back when it was 2 minutes, the time penalty wasn’t a deterrent for folks to not draft. You could draft and make up more time than time lost if you got a penalty.

You are only getting one side of the story. And 98% of the athletes who get a penalty all say the same thing; “wasn’t my fault”.

Own the penalty, pay more attention to the group dynamics, know when you are at risk, and learn how not to put yourself in a vulnerable position.

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blog

What about Baekgard he pops to the side as a reflex to avoid drafting, same thing with sebi last year. then instead of the ref being able to give him a stop and go they pop him with 5 minutes? these aren't guys out there sucking wheel and cheating, these are minor infractions in the heat of the moment, infractions that every pro or age grouper makes every race, including you.
It's so simple allow a few options.

Referees have to referee two races under supervision before certified. There is absolutely no one that's going out to become a referee in Triathlon that hasn't raced.

You can do all the course work virtually, no issues. It was likely not this person's first rodeo.

However, I love this discussion going on in this thread. It's as bad as it is in D4 club rugby where everyone wants to blame the referee when someone threw a punch to get a red card.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.