A friend of mine finished second in the age group 50-54 @ IM UK. The guy who won , Zvika Fishman won by a long way
Zvika finished around 30th OVERALL in a time of 10h30 on a brutal en slow course. He swam 1h 22 / **Biked the 24th fastest time 5h 28 **( 2’ faster then me biked 10’ slower the the top pro’s) and then ran 3h30.
I checked his previous results :
@ IM Frankfurt 2005: 614 in 11h 09 : 1h24 / 5h 43 ( 875th bike time/ 3h53
@ IM France 2005: 11h17 : 1h17 / 6h24 / 3h35
@ IM OOsten 2004 : 734th in 11h26 : 1h29 / 5h57 ( 1149th bike time / 3h53
As you might have heard , The course goes south from Sherborne for 5 miles and then two loops of about 28 miles through Dorchester and several small villages before heading back through Sherborne. Continuing northwards for 9 miles before joining another loop which we circled twice before returning to base. So it was easie to skip either the top or bottom loop, there were no timing mats. What can my friend do ?? It was his dream to go to hawaii this year cause his son qualified also … No way a cheater like that can go to hawaii … suggestions ?
Well it might be true, but you really have no proof. Its impressive that this guy has already done 3IM this year(assuming he actually did the whole course of all of them)
A friend of mine finished second in the age group 50-54 @ IM UK. The guy who won , Zvika Fishman won by a long way
Zvika finished around 30th OVERALL in a time of 10h30 on a brutal en slow course. He swam 1h 22 / **Biked the 24th fastest time 5h 28 **( 2’ faster then me biked 10’ slower the the top pro’s) and then ran 3h30.
I checked his previous results :
@ IM Frankfurt 2005: 614 in 11h 09 : 1h24 / 5h 43 ( 875th bike time/ 3h53
@ IM France 2005: 11h17 : 1h17 / 6h24 / 3h35
@ IM OOsten 2004 : 734th in 11h26 : 1h29 / 5h57 ( 1149th bike time / 3h53
As you might have heard , The course goes south from Sherborne for 5 miles and then two loops of about 28 miles through Dorchester and several small villages before heading back through Sherborne. Continuing northwards for 9 miles before joining another loop which we circled twice before returning to base. So it was easie to skip either the top or bottom loop, there were no timing mats. What can my friend do ?? It was his dream to go to hawaii this year cause his son qualified also … No way a cheater like that can go to hawaii … suggestions ?
The other weekend at the Sports Barn Sprint Tri in Chattanooga I had the second fastest bike split on the “very long” 9 mile bike section. There was a 50-54 year guy who beat my bike split by 4 seconds or so, and my only thought was that I 'll be hopefully that fast when I am 50+.
Cheers,
Herbert
Litespeed/QR
by the way the winner of the age group 40-44 did the same thing, but at the awards he admitted he made a mistake and missed a loop… so the win went to the second guy
I think it’s unfair to accuse this person of cheating when you don’t know for sure. It sucks if he did cheat, but sounds like no one will ever know for sure. Your friend is very close, his time will definitely come!
Wimothy
Note that this Zvika bloke also improved his run, so he can argue that he got fitter since the other races. Granted it looks fishy, but if the UK rules are anything like those here in the US, then if you don’t get your complaint in on race day then it’s too late. We’ve had issues with a course cutter (who won money but not Kona slots) here in Penn-Jersey, but there was nothing anyone could do once the bike racks were pulled down and the geese were finishing off the discarded powergels.
You ought to get more evidence before you start yelling “fraud”. Examining the results, it ought to be possible to find some MOP swimmer - fast bikers who came out of the water just before the person whom you’re accusing. You can ask those bikers if they ever got overtaken.
People here will believe that a 50-54 guy can indeed go that fast, so don’t even bother…
Engineer-boy, there are plenty of 50-54 guys who can go 10:30 - and guess what - they can go sub 10h as well.
Wim, while I understand your frustration you’re openly accusing someone of cheating without any evidence of him having cheated. You’re just alleging that he can’t ride that fast. What if he had been hampered by a physical condition in all the past races that had now been cured, or if he had ridden a 20-year old bike with drop bars and downtube shifters and now he had a Cervelo P3 fitted by Tom Demerly. My point is your argument it tenuous.
In my opinion unless you have something like a volunteer confirming that he didn’t pass a checkpoint you don’t have much ground to stand on.
That’s really dissappointing but not that surprising. I was riding with (not drafting just in a line) big group of guys at the end of the fourth lap and we were all going past two AG women who were clearly on their 3rd lap. I’m not being arrogant but there was no way that at the speed they were going we’d only have been catching them now if they were on their fourth. Anyway they turned off with us in the confusion and I just felt really dissappointed for them - it looked like an innocent mistake and unless they went back they were going to get to Sherbourne and realised they were 15 miles short.
I really hope you’re mate sorts this out and that they get timing mats for next year.
He improved his run time by 10% over Frankfurt (versus 4% improvement on the bike). Did he cut the course on the run as well?
Did he “train through” any of the other races? Was this his goal race?
How long were the loops he might have “missed”?
edit: A post above mentions the possibility of missing a 15 mile loop. That’s about 45 minutes…would have led to a bike split over a half hour slower than Frankfurt.
Gotta side with wim on this one…no way that guy did the course legit. But, it’s probably too late to do anything about it, the time would have been at the awards/roll down. Your friend would have to protest to the race director AND WTC, but tell him not to hold his breath. He should also directly question the alleged “winner”…
Wim, the problem with that is that it’s in your friend’s interest to say that the person who beat him didn’t pass him so it wouldn’t carry much weight.
I’m not saying it didn’t happen, just that you don’t have any evidence to support the claim.
