Littering Penalties

This past weekend at Door County 70.3 I ejected an aid station water bottle from my BTS cage. It is my opinion they were using the wrong style of bottle to hold effectively in a bike cage, but that is neither here nor there.

I noticed it eject and looked back and sure enough I had an official on my tail. I slammed on my brakes, turned around and retrieved the bottle. If I am being perfectly honest, had an official not been there I probably would not have gone back. I am not overly proud of that, but that is the truth.

My question is, what constitutes a littering penalty? Had I not gone back and picked up the bottle, would or should I have gotten a littering penalty for an unintentional ejection of a bottle?

This past weekend at Door County 70.3 I ejected an aid station water bottle from my BTS cage. It is my opinion they were using the wrong style of bottle to hold effectively in a bike cage, but that is neither here nor there.

I noticed it eject and looked back and sure enough I had an official on my tail. I slammed on my brakes, turned around and retrieved the bottle. If I am being perfectly honest, had an official not been there I probably would not have gone back. I am not overly proud of that, but that is the truth.

My question is, what constitutes a littering penalty? Had I not gone back and picked up the bottle, would or **should **I have gotten a littering penalty for an unintentional ejection of a bottle?

yup. I have ejected bottles and gone back every time to get them. Litter does nothing to help the RD when they are trying to run races in towns. Pick up your sh!t. The guys that throw their gel wrappers drive me crazy.

The rules don’t really have any caveat regarding “legal” littering. So technically speaking, anything dropped outside of the designated areas constitutes littering.

However, I did officiate for a few years and I don’t know of any official who would penalise you for something like a dropped bottle from a BTS cage. It happened to Starky on the Kona live feed with 20 motos and officials around him…

similar situation happened to me, but the bottle somehow bounced off my leg and hit my spokes. Nothing major happened, but, it could have. Those cheap waterbottles drive me crazy (the super thin ones). Now what I try to do is take a really big drink from them right away, so they are a bit lighter and won’t “eject” HOPEFULLY!

I wouldn’t call it littering, but an official might. When my bottle hit the spokes and went flying - it took off into the weeds big time. I can see it now - I stop and spend 20 minutes looking for an ejected bottle. I hate litter, as much as the next guy…

In 20 years of triathlon racing, my one and only penalty was for “abandoned equipment.” I was exiting the swim at Granite Ledges and pulled my goggles off my head, the swim cap shot off my head and landed in the sand. I turned to look behind me for the swim cap, and saw three gigantic wide body Clydesdales on my heels, so I left the swim cap on the beach to avoid being trampled by Clydes. Since the swim cap was numbered, I got a penalty for “abandoned equipment.”

BrokenSpoke

Being totally snarky here, admittedly.

But you don’t seriously need someone to tell you what littering is do you?

Being totally snarky here, admittedly.

But you don’t seriously need someone to tell you what littering is do you?

Nope, I know exactly what littering is. I am asking in what scenarios a littering penalty is handed out.

The rules don’t really have any caveat regarding “legal” littering. So technically speaking, anything dropped outside of the designated areas constitutes littering.

However, I did officiate for a few years and I don’t know of any official who would penalise you for something like a dropped bottle from a BTS cage. It happened to Starky on the Kona live feed with 20 motos and officials around him…

I few years back at IM 70.3 Chattanooga I talked to a pro who said he got a littering penalty when he launched a bottle going over railroad tracks.

As in all sports (except those using instant replay), reality is what the referee sees.

if the roads are really bad its possible you don’t know that a bottle ejected. I almost got hit in the head from one bouncing up in front of me. I’d assume littering to be throwing banana peels, water cups and gel wrappers on the ground. its really disrespectful to the community and all it takes is one ticked off resident to raise a stink about it.

Being totally snarky here, admittedly.

But you don’t seriously need someone to tell you what littering is do you?

Nope, I know exactly what littering is. I am asking in what scenarios a littering penalty is handed out.

So asking ho a ref is going to react? I’ve seen littering penalties for ejected bottles, as well as trash falling out of pocket. If if comes off your body, it’s littering and I guess 100% discretionary whether you get popped.

It’s going to depend on the official, and whether it is witnessed. As someone else mentioned, littering is littering, and the reason the rules exist to begin with is to keep the area clean, so that the RD can get permits to hold the events year after year, if people are throwing their gel wrappers all over the place rather than in dedicated liter zones, it’s hard for the RD to effectively clean up the course, so that residents don’t lose their minds with a yard full of cups and waterbottles.

That being said, most officials are probably more sympathetic for the accidentally ejected bottles and may show mercy, versus something intentionally chucked when it’s outside of the littering zones.

For example at a race on the weekend, where I was chief bike official, but where there was rain and a stretch of exceptionally bad road, I didn’t give penalties for ejected bottles or visors even though I witnessed several, but if I saw someone pitch their bottle, they would have gotten dinged. Conversely at a race the weekend before, an athlete pitched a bottle 10m after the end of the littering zone, right in front of me on the moto, and he got a littering penalty (and much like your case, there were tones of bottles and food wrappers in the 500m or so after the littering zone, but none of them were witnessed by officials, only a couple of people got caught for littering, because they weren’t listening carefully enough to hear the motorcycles behind them, before pitching something…).

As a responsible member of the community, I won’t litter outside of designated areas on the course, and if I did accidentally drop a bottle, and could safely retrieve it I would, regardless of whether there was or wasn’t an official around.

The one exception to this is the lost cycling shoe at dismount… this used to be a penalty, but at least in the case of the ITU, this has not been a penalty the last 3 years… the reason being, that an athlete turning around and running back to dismount, while other athletes are streaming in (especially while turning, and their bike being perpendicular to athlete flow) is far more dangerous than the stray shoe… But many athletes don’t realize this and try to go back to get it… at many recent races where I have been at the dismount line and I see a shoe slide out (as long as it’s accidental) I’ll yell to the athletes to leave it, but some still turn and create the larger hazard. If ever they took out a group of people while doing this, they’d probably end up getting a penalty or a DQ for impeding other athletes because of the dangerous behavior (this speaks to the caveat I mention above about being able to safely retrieve the bottle, without creating a dangerous situation, such as being in a blind corner, or the sort)…

This past weekend at Door County 70.3 I ejected an aid station water bottle from my BTS cage. It is my opinion they were using the wrong style of bottle to hold effectively in a bike cage, but that is neither here nor there.

I noticed it eject and looked back and sure enough I had an official on my tail. I slammed on my brakes, turned around and retrieved the bottle. If I am being perfectly honest, had an official not been there I probably would not have gone back. I am not overly proud of that, but that is the truth.

My question is, what constitutes a littering penalty? Had I not gone back and picked up the bottle, would or should I have gotten a littering penalty for an unintentional ejection of a bottle?

FWIW I did my USAT referee clinic at Door County a few years ago. Though I am no longer a referee it was an enlightening experience.

I believe they have changed the rules since then, or maybe it is WTC’s unique rule but now they have a differentiation of the rule.

If it is an obvious littering; tossing a gel, bottle, etc it is something along the line of “intentional littering”. However, if the bottle ejects in a rear cage and it is truly accidental as the athlete does not know it happened I believe that is “accidental littering”. Both are penalties, but the penalty is more harsh for the intentional versus accidental.