I agree…this argument needs to end. Leave the ironman distance races to WTC and the rest to USAT and ITU. There needs to be only ONE world championship for half irons and not one run by WTC. Also, let some of the WTC profits go to athlete development and not to corporate profits.
I also strongly believe there needs to be more draft legal racing in the US and abroad. My personal opinion is to get rid of drafting rules altogether, but I realize there are those who think that “thou shalt not draft” is the eleventh commandment and probably won’t happen. The stand downs in ironman races however, are dangerous and capricious and should not be allowed.
Hey, your an idiot. That has been a part of our sport since the mid 80’s. USAT has had a track record of accidents at events, but not relating to standowns or moto’s on course, but aid stations and pedestrian’s stepping out and colliding with cyclist. WOrk on THAT.
The reason USAT did away with standowns is not for safety. They did away with it, because Charlie Crawford said they were having so much trouble getting good officials , and so many bad calls were being made, he had no way to overturn a 4 minute Penalty Box Standown. the damage was done.
Why do you think at a typical long course USAT event 250 to 300 penalties are called, and Charlie in the back room throws out 100 to 200 penalties upon “review”. That is the reason.
How do you review a call, with no instant replay, no video, nothing but a notebook???
Ironman does give money to communities and to athletes and to pro athletes on their own, not to mention the fact that Ironman supplies 50% of USAT’s budget, so in an indirect way, they are paying for USAT’s programs too.
Yes, they did do away with for safety and insurance reasons. Speaking of reviewing calls, with WTC’s system there IS NO REVIEW…it is done with no appeal. Where is there any fairness in that (I could call YOU an idiot at this point, but I won’t.) There are accidents for a multitude of reason and we don’t need any more causes. My personal opinion is to remove that problem and get rid of drafting rules altogether, but I won’t hold my breath on that one. Nevertheless, the ultimate issue on all of this is WTC trying to become a competing federation. No offense to WTC because they do put on a good race, but I’ll take USAT any day. WTC needs to stick to ironman and the rest will work itself out.
Hey, yet again . Have you READ usat’s rules? You can’t APPEAL any Judgement call. That means drafting. So their “Appeals” process is what? i have no idea.
Charlie Cooking the books.
If it isn’t broke , don’t fix it. They have been doing the system for almost 20 years now.
Funny, competing federation? that is exactly what the WTC says they DON’T want to be. Read ST and triathlete. They have expressly said it.
The GTG was out of necessity, as USAT denied them a sanction. They had to do it.
From the USAT PR RELEASE:
“Skip provided the Board with two strong options; one a compromise, and the other a removal of the sanction,” said Brad Davison, president of the USA Triathlon Board of Directors. “In a conference call last Wednesday (June 8), Skip recommended the latter course of action and, based on a number of factors, the Board gave its unanimous approval.”
REMOVAL OF THE SANCTION
What was WTC to do? I guess close up shop in the US and not have any events.
in addition, if a compromise was being discussed, it is obvious that someone at Ironman was trying to work it out. USAT is the one who caused this. THE END.
Yes, they did do away with for safety and insurance reasons. Speaking of reviewing calls, with WTC’s system there IS NO REVIEW…it is done with no appeal. Where is there any fairness in that (I could call YOU an idiot at this point, but I won’t.) There are accidents for a multitude of reason and we don’t need any more causes. My personal opinion is to remove that problem and get rid of drafting rules altogether, but I won’t hold my breath on that one.
Do you honestly believe getting rid of the drafting rule will cause LESS accidents? Think of how many inexperienced triathletes there are doing IM races. You get somebody who doesn’t know how to draft sucking your wheel and they make mistake and boom, your day is done. It would cause way more problems.
You must either be really naive or work for Ironman somehow if you believe the WTC rhetoric that the GTG was “born of necessity” all because big-bad USAT wouldn’t allow them to have stand downs on the bike at the Homu tri in June. Now because WTC races are self-regulated WTC gets $9 per person from every competitor.
Now I’m not sure who is underwriting their insurance policy. But I’ll bet it’s one of the WTC sponsors.
Basically the GTG is yet another way for WTC to control their side of the sport and don’t fool yourself into thinking they won’t try to start offering insurance for other non-Ironman events soon.
With GTG (which is controlled by WTC) acting as the officiating body for WTC events there is no check & balance nor impartiality in the governing of an event. I’m not saying they will do a bad job but for an athlete that runs afoul with WTC for whatever reason they are going to find they have very little recourse in a dispute with WTC.
? If WTC is now charging 10.00 for insurance for every race you do, say a person does 3 or more
races, they end up paying 30.00+ for the insurance part, will GTG issue or offer license to keep this cost
down ?
Seems to me when USAT raised the one day license to 9.00 people went shit crazy and complained and
still do. But when they are getting charged 10.00 each race with WTC…all is quite. Strange.
Also, for all those triathletes out there that bitch and complain about USAT, have you ever thought about
giving back to the sport to make for a change or be a part of your Regions Board to CHANGE with your input ? Seems like the right thing to do.
There are, if not mistaken 10 Regions in the country and I bet youthere is room for complainers to be on
the Regional Board and start the push for change.
not a good argument. Plenty of pro sports have paid ref’s. Soccor, NFL, NBA. Even Nascar polices itself. I believe they are all hired by the leagues. Why would WTC risk their business if they were getting poor Ref’s due to USAT volunteer system?
I also strongly believe there needs to be more draft legal racing in the US and abroad. My personal opinion is to get rid of drafting rules altogether, but I realize there are those who think that “thou shalt not draft” is the eleventh commandment and probably won’t happen. The stand downs in ironman races however, are dangerous and capricious and should not be allowed.
I strongly believe that you are a retard. Draft-legal races are dangerous as hell with all the untrained cyclists out there. Half of them (The Purple MenaceTM comes to mind) can’t hold a straight line, much less pull out a water bottle and put it back. Even rides with trained group riders are dangerous, just look at all the TdF crashes or ask any local roadie. While I agree that the stand down is stupid (no way to take back a bad call), yer a tard for suggesting to make more races draft legal in the US. I wouldn’t race IM if it were draft legal, where’s the individual accomplishment if you do the bike in a 30mph group pack?!?!?! Bah.
So I guess what I saw in CDA back in June was just pure top notch Officiating ? Pure bullshit.
I was there I raced and saw some pretty poor Officiating and it was not USAT. In time, maybe GTG
will get better, just like all Officials…correct OR are
we all just going to pound on USAT Officials. I know many damn good Officials that make a call and access the siuation before the call…are you listening GTG and J. Riccatello ?
From all my racing, adults racers can not stand the fact that they got caught in a penalty situation. How
many in the sport have actually sat down and read the rules. You will be surprised, have you ?
If you are indesperate need to know where USAT funds go, get involved with the organization or zip it up and leave.