i just competed in my first ironman yesterday. had an amazing day- felt great! until this morning when i woke up to check my splits. i was DQ’d!
apparently there are many others out there who are totally baffled by how they could have missed the last 6 miles of the bike. pros missed this too- but they had people tell them a mile into the run they needed to go back.
i did everything this course asked me to do. i followed the complete three bike loops according to the automated voice message. after i finished the last (third) loop, i went to the right as instructed.
i learned the course as best as i could. i even did a camp here to reveiw the course. the course was congested- turn after turn after turn. how could i possibly miss anything? I DID EVERYTHING I WAS ASKED TO DO. but now, i have a DQ next to my name. this is heartbreaking.
when Holloway and Gollnick were asked to get back on the bike to do that extra lap, I thought, oh man, how many AGers will be in this situation except that there will be no one to tell them get back on the course, you haven’t done the extra lap.
I guess I was right, seeing the # of DQed today, and I expect many are in this situation.
Sorry to hear that.
Did you attend the mandatory race meeting where they explained the “city loop”? I could see how this may have been a little confusing if not. The guy right in front on me did the same thing and I wondered if those folks would get DQ’ed.
I almost got creamed coming into the bike finish by competitors who were heading back out to do the city loop. Did you miss a chip mat? The sportstat people have missed only 2-3 chips in the last three years.
If you look through the preliminary results at IMlive.com, you see A LOT of DQs by people’s names. Are these all because of people missing the final bike loop? Crazy. When it’s that number of people, it’s something wrong with the course, not the competitors.
I dont know the whole story, I did not even read the replys before I am typing this…that is BULLSHIT. Damn bullshit. THis is IronMan…people are pushing their bodys to the limits of human ability - be it 8 hours or 17 hours. The course should reqiure NO THOUGHT AT ALL. It should be so obvious that ANYONE even someone who is stupid and suffering can do it right. I dont care to hear that blah blah blah many people got it right…that is shit.
You know, that is one of the reasons I am so in love with the IMLP course…4 turns on the bike, I think less on the run. I cant mess it up (and give me a chance I will).
I hate to hear this. Sorry man…I really hope you got a medal, you deserve it. Show it off, be proud. You would have earned it either way.
Hey, I feel for you and I don’t want to make this negative at all, clearly there were a lot of DQ’s in the results so I’m sure a lot of people did the same thing. Add 20 minutes to your time and count it as an Ironman.
The thing that confuses me about this is the recorded message coming up the Lakeview hill that says over and over “Laps 1,2, and 3 turn left, final city loop turn right”. The people that jumped into the transition area early would never had made that right turn. I was very much looking forward to making that right turn everytime I passed that dam tape. So if I pulled into transition without having done it, I would know something was not right.
Did the sign at the transition directing riders left say “laps 2/3”? That’s my memory of it. If so, I think that could be a problem since you need to pass left for the 2nd lap start, 3rd lap start, and 4th (city loop).
I don’t think the race directors deserve much criticism about this though. In addition to the tape message, the course was clearly covered in the pre-race meeting, bike computers shouldn’t be off that much, and as they say, it’s the athletes responsibility. Anyway, the DQ is just for the record, it doesn’t take away from what you accomplished.
I heard through the grapevine that the organizers truly did their best to have the race with the original bike course but were pretty much told at the last minute ‘hey, deal with it, you can’t get through here’…
so, my apologies for bashing IMNA and ignoring athletes…they did what they could and came up with a last minute course.
It was clear that it would likely have some issues, and despite the lack of volunteers, they put on a nice race.
Francois, i have to disagree with you on this. IMNA should have had the bike course details finalized, agreed upon, with a signed contract, agreement prior to announcing the race.
Why should the ultimate fault fall on the athlete? When we register for an IM event (usually 1 yr in advance) we agree to do the race and if, for what ever reason, we have to drop out six months later we don’t get a (full) refund.
I may sound bitter, but really I’m not. It’s just hard to hear about people putting in the training for an IM and then somthing like this happening - the earlier point of having the course be simple is dead on.
IMNA, it would be great to see you hold cities/counties accountable making last second changes just as you do for the athletes.
ok then maybe between the “mandatory” race meeting, bike computer, course maps, signs and recorded messages along the road you would think that you could place some of the blame on yourself and not “I DID EVERYTHING I WAS ASKED TO DO.”? But maybe this is too harsh? Tough break for sure… but blame yourself, learn from it and move on.
Sounds to me like you have very little idea the burden this race puts on the community. There are businesses that are completely cut off from their customers for almost the entire day(*). There are lines of traffic a mile long waiting to go through stop lights. We more or less completely shut down access to the prime entertainment district in the Phoenix area for an entire day and night. All this so 1850 of us could go do our race. Yeah it might help book a few hotel rooms, but they have events EVERY WEEKEND in Downtown Tempe and most of them attract 10’s of 1000’s and don’t cause anywhere near this disruption. And this race does nothing to benefit 99.999% of the people affected by it.
Expecting the community that has NO experience with this kind of event to commit to a road closure and, I presume you mean held financially accountable for it, a year in advance is totally unrealistic. We should be extremely grateful to the Pima-Maricopa Salt River Indian Reservation and the Downtown Tempe Community (not to mention the residents of these areas that sat in traffic). Compared to us Ironmen, the Indian community is not particularly wealthy, and closing off a source of income to them is not something their leaders take lightly. It is incredible they would let us do this at all. Beggars do not make ultimatums.
(*) This was mentioned at the awards banquet, but for those of you in the area, please join me in fueling at the Chevron on Hayden and McKellips every chance you get. Maybe let them know you are an IM.
It was pretty clear when and where to turn. You start looping at gilbert road once, twice, three times then you know you have to do the city loop. I thought it was pretty clear. What can IMNA do when they say hey we’re keeping the dump open even though we have contracts…I can here it now “go ahead, sue us we still won’t open the roads”.
If you read this fourm, read the course map, attended the mandatory pre-race meeting, or paid attention to the course markings, it should have been a no brainer that you needed to make a fourth lap ‘City’ lap.
Agreed, being DQ’d for missing a measly 6 miles on the bike sucks. They even said that they would have someone to be there at T2 to tell you if you made all the loops or not. I didn’t see anyone there like that, and it sounds like you didn’t either. Thats a real pisser. I’m sorry to hear it. Your still an Ironman.
Compared to us Ironmen, the Indian community is not particularly wealthy, and closing off a source of income to them is not something their leaders take lightly.
Wasn’t the Indian Casino offered compensation for letting IMNA run the course through there part of town. They were going to cover any lost costs compared to last year on teh same weekend.
Wasn’t it the county refuse that had the major problem with the road closure that caused the course change.
I wasn’t at the race, never done an IM, and I never have a computer on my bike to tell me how far I have gone.