sorry! I am afraid that my French language skills are severly atrophied. They do not get much use, verbal or written, nowadays. My memory of the time I spent in Tours studying is still sharp though. And, remember the armpit hair thing that came up in another thread. When I lived there it wasn't an urban legend.

Back on bandits a minute. As a risk manager, the real issue is one of liability. As noted earlier, a bandit has not signed a waiver. So even the mitigating factor of having a signed waiver is not there. Although they are in the race "illegally" you just gotta' know that if they are injured they will contend that they had some kind of right to expect a safe course. And (this is the USA after all) there will be a lawsuit! A lifetime ban might be too harsh. But maybe a lifetime ban where you could earn back your elegibility through hours (and I mean a lot of hours) of race vouluneering might be a solution. Or am I just being too simplistic?

Whoa Tom!! I can't wait to read your daily editorial, now that you're all hopped up on coffee. Maybe it could be about race bandits? You're on a roll my friend! BTW, thanks for the link permission.

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- Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
P. J. O'Rourke

I agree on this.

However, wouldn't it be simpler to prevent people from doing ridiculous lawsuits, for reasons that seem complete fantasy? it's really catch 22. "we" pay a lot
for insurance because "we" are allowed to sue for pretty much anything (although that could be the media giving us this idea).

In a previous post, I talked about a way to implement some kind of "transfer" of entry that seemed very doable. For the IM, have a page on the site for having a pool of cancelled entries for each IMNA race (this is not an issue in most other IM).
You click on it, decide not to race, pay a maybe 25% penalty until 6 weeks out, and 50% until a month out, etc...0% 3-4 weeks out. Then the entry is transferred to the "pool of reissued entries" for the considered IM, and it is also available on a first in first served basis.

implementation details need to be worked out, but this is very doable, could be all web based (for big races like IM races) so the excuse of admin. fees does not stand. IMNA would make more money, people who can't race would get at least a partial refund and people who couldn't enter could...

That is a good idea. New entries. New waivers being signed, etc. Looks like a win all the way around. However, remember you are dealing with (and I hate to put too fine a point on it) a bureaucracy here. Sadly, from my observation and having been involved in coaching at the college level before my current career as well as having been involved in the recent past with high level disabled sports, amateur sports bureaucraries are the worst. IMHO for the most part those who administer amateur sports are not there for the athlete but for the power they perceive their position gives them (remember I said IMHO and this does not apply to all administrators). So, to implement what seems to be a logical idea becomes, to them, a threat and not a solution.

As to the chicken and egg issue of insurance and lawsuits, that is one of torte reform. Our legal system is a much larger quagmire than Iraq, and unfortunately we cannot call in B52 bunker buster strikes on it. Although it probably deserves to be destroyed and rebuilt.

"You click on it, decide not to race, pay a maybe 25% penalty until 6 weeks out, and 50% until a month out, etc...0% 3-4 weeks out."

this is exactly what is needed. this, and to have it be more or less an industry-wide standard. this would also help the RDs, because as it is now most of those i talk to decide this on a case-by-case basis. therefore, they have to hear the sob stories and decide which is worthy of a refund.

it's also common for an RD to apply all the amount, or at least an amount greater than the refunded portion, to the RD's future race still open for new registration. having this be an easy solution that one could execute on active, signmeup, etc., would help solve the problem.

i don't know how ultimately enforceable a no-transfer policy would be if the alternative remedy is draconian. i don't know that USAT and its RDs are doing themselves a service by saying, "you have to register three decades in advance of the race you want to do, and you have no recourse if you can't race, except to risk a lifetime ban from the sport if you try to form your own recourse."

USAT is just tone deaf on this. i'm afraid they're going to risk losing court cases because of the inequity of it. they need to exercise some leadership, but they're so awfully scared of pissing off RDs by meddling with what is a profit center (you charge $150 or $300 for a service you don't have to offer) that they steer clear of the issue.

if USAT and RDs were to fashion a reasonable industry-wide refund policy, then the race-transfer problem would disappear. if you did have a reasonable remedy for race refunds, i wonder if you could also tag onto the process a transfer of liability to the seller of entry? what if, when you signed up, you agreed not to sell your entry, but if you DID sell it anyway, then not only would you be liable for a 2-year ban, lifetime ban, whatever, you'd also be the responsible liable party, since you're the agent of sale or transfer? would you sell your entry if in so doing you expressly accepted the liability, also agreeing to hold harmless the RD, sanctioning body, etc.? perhaps this is enforceable if there was a reasonable refund policy available to the race entry seller that he chose not to take advantage of.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Now He has spoken, praise be upon him, and so it is written. These bandits, these devils, they shall die on our beaches. We shall revoke their racing license and dance on their wetsuits in the transition area. We have acheived a glorius victory in His name against these bandits, praise be upon Him. The shall be condemed to the valley of Big Slam for their banditing ways. They shall forever be on shallow seat tube angles. They will roast without sunscreen, these devils, these race bandits. Jihad against them. More coffee please.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

"People will buy entries and make up their schedule later, getting refunds for the races they choose not to do"

perhaps you're right. but your model assumes that a full refund is offered. i'm not. i'm assuming that a portion, which declines as the race approaches, is rebated. i don't think it would be cost effective to enter everything on the schedule if that was the case.

yes, you're right, the deal we have might be a good one. otoh, let's say you are an RD, and you charge $600 because you've been filling your race at $350. there will come a point where your brand becomes a lot less appealing, and people decide that your competitor (which is sure to spring up) has a more appealing brand at $125 per entry. then you've got to backtrack, but i think the damage will have been done. i think RDs realize that, and charge as much as they can without overtly grinding their customers.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

ok, this idea is copyrighted. I hire oglethorpe for the intellectual property thing.
need to implement my idea, talk to my lawyer :-))

Dan, you are on the right track here. USAT definitly needs to take a leadership role on this issue, and I am disapointed that they aren't. Evidently they only see the problem as lawsuits, and the cause as bandit racers. They are missing the point that the real problem is high demand races filling up too early and athletes not having any recourse. USAT has to lead on this issue because it's not in the best interests of the RDs to fix the problem. Not to thow too many aspersions on the RDs, but I think they would love to sell/oversell out a race 12 months in advance, have half the people drop out because of a SARS outbreak, then cancel the race 2 weeks beforehand because of "unexpected circumstances out of their control", and say sorry, no refunds and keep all the money. Heck, they wouldn't even really need to plan on having the event, and not spend any of the money along the way. Obviously I am overly villainizing the RDs here. IMNA tried to appease everyone at the IM Utah debacle, but imagine if they had decided that the swim was unsafe, oh, and while were at it, it's too windy on the bike, and why bother just having a marathon, so thanks for coming, you can sign up for next years race at the table in the corner.

Francois, what's my cut of the royalty?

Also, TD, one word PROTEIN, and lots of it. Although I'm not sure we want you to stop. You seem to be having so much fun.

let's see...
I take 15% of entry fees from the IMNA and you get 33% of it.

IMCdA+IMLP+IMW+IMC+IMFl =5 races.
2200 entries per race, that's 11,000 entries.
times $375 is 4,125,000 + say 20% of extra money
due to penalties + reassigning entries is 4,950,000.
I get 15% that's $742500 and give you a third.
$247500.

gee, that's pretty decent :-)
I would stop working... :-)

$125 is a half IM entry fee. I thought we were talking full IMs?

There are other IMs out there. They are not nearly as successful IMNA's races, with much lower entries. The IM name is certainly one reason. The quality of race, and all race festivities, is certainly another. You are always free to start one yourself......

Using a punitive refund policy, there are still many athletes buying entries and not showing up for races. If you make it less expensive to do so, you will only have more entries bought by people who will later not want them. People need to plan their entire season, and sometimes offseason, around an IM event, and need a long time to prepare. If they are lucky enough to get an entry somebody decided they did not want a few months before the race, they may not have time to train for a good race. Easing punitive refund policies makes it harder for people who may really want to race to get an entry, and have time to prepare. It makes it easier for people who may not really want to do a race to hold an entry they may not use.

Remember, USAT has to balance the wishes of athletes and RDs, but in the end they will grow as an organization with more races sanctioned. They will tend to be more supportive of the RD's wishes because of that. USAT needs races to sanction to be viable. Races can exist and be successful without USAT sanction.

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"Remember: a bicycle is an elegant and efficient tool designed for seeking out and defeating people who aren't as good as you."

--BikeSnobNYC

Here, here for the USAT taking a more leadership role. You bring up a good point here. Utah is a good example of the USAT dropping the ball and not protecting athletes. Though this is again somewhat villianizing, by not taking any action (at least none I observed as a participant at Utah) USAT set a dangerous precident. They effectively said that its ok for a RD to shorten or cancel a race, deliver less than they promised, still profit as if they had put on the race, and tough luck for the athlete. I thought the USAT was here for US - the athletes.

I know there are plenty of rules from the USAT that govern athletes during races, but out of curiosity I checked out the USAT website for rules for RDs who are putting on a USAT sanctioned race. All I could find was a page of "suggestions" with a few requirements thrown in. Someone please tell me that I'm mistaken and simply didn't search hard enough and there are more extensive regulations out there. My understanding was that the USAT's function is to govern the sport - all aspects of the sport. If these "suggestions" are all that the USAT is doing to help endsure quality and safe events then IMHO they aren't cutting it.

Just an added thought. I don't think the USAT fee is that much. I'd gladly pay twice as much if it meant they could truly ensure quality races by having stricter governing over the races that they sanction.

--- I know there are plenty of rules from the USAT that govern athletes during races, but out of curiosity I checked out the USAT website for rules for RDs who are putting on a USAT sanctioned race. All I could find was a page of "suggestions" with a few requirements thrown in. Someone please tell me that I'm mistaken and simply didn't search hard enough ---

Check out the document http://www.usatriathlon.org/Event Sanctioning/2003/Requirements_Guidelines_2003.pdf You can get to it from the main page: USAT Events, then sanction application, and its listed under the first section. It includes about 90 requirements and 30 suggestions for any sanctioned race. Take a look - it's quite detailed.

In addition, on that same page is an event evaluation. I'd recommend filling one out for any race you're been in. And do it for the Good, not just the Bad and Ugly.

Jihad against these bandids. I condemn them.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com