I just read a copy of the race coverage in Triathlete magazine over the Holiday. Let me share a couple quotes with everyone:
Reid: “I was CIRCLED through like everyone else”
Bell: upon Stadler’s ‘breakaway’, “Everyone was sorta looking around and no one wanted to CHASE that early on.”
Stadler: “I couldn’t stand the GROUP”
What sport is this? I respect Al-Sultan for going on his own as long as he could. I respect Stadler for breaking away and spending more energy because it was right, rather than circling through as Reid himself said he did.
Either put an asterick next to Reid’s name or give the title to Stadler.
It is unfortunate that a rule that was (as far as I can tell) instituted to allow Professional women to race unhindered by good age-group men was abused to destroy the spirit of the sport by the Pro men (EXCEPT STADLER & AL-SULTAN).
It did look a bit like a pace line though didn’t it? I’m sure there were some definite drafting benefits with 16 riders being that close. I appreciated Stadler’s effort in breaking away.
Are you sure you have enough asterisks to put up next to the results?
Because drafting issues are as old as triathlon. I’m pretty sure that in the very first triathlon some of the competitors were complaining about it. And some were doing it!
Triathlon is about the same thing as race walking, except race walking has been around for a longer time. You either accept the way things are or you pick up… running
I saw the “Canadian” version of the Hawaii coverage this past weekend on Sportsnet Ontario. They take NBC footage and throw in some shots of Reid, Bentley, Fuhr and Bowden with Graham Fraser doing some commentary. For the most part, it was the same as the NBC coverage, but a few of the shots of Reid on the bike were more from the side than the NBC coverage and it looked like they were grouped rather loosely (ie. not jumping on each other’s wheels like in a pro bike race). I think they definitely got some advantage since whenever you ride with people anywhere around you but maybe not as much as some of the packs that I saw at IMFL this year. I think that Reid would have won on that day regardless of the new rule. Maybe they should change the stagger rule so that it only applies to the pro women and then there wouldn’t be this problem and the goal of the rule would be met. As for it being unfair that only the women get to stagger and a group is getting special treatment … all the pros got a 75m head start on me at IMFL so obviously giving one group special consideration is not a problem in the eyes of the WTC.
The group was drafting. To argue that they weren’t is absurd.
In the spirit of the race, Reid did not win. The bike leg of the race is intended to be a time trial format. There should be no drafting of any kind. Reid drafted just like the others in the group.
In the spirit of the race Stadler deserves the title of Ironman World Champion because he was the first racer to finish that treated the bike as a time trial.
The reality is that Reid should not be stripped of his title because he is in a sport that allows you to do things outside the spirit of the race. This is why Ironman Racing is not a legitimate sport. It states that drafting is not league and then it allows you to draft.
Has anyone seen any interviews on the net from any of the pros that pertain specifically to drafting at the 2003 world championship?
can anyone remember the last time that no pro complained about the drafting at IMH. Might as well be a quasi -ITU race. A better name might be Ironman World Drafting Championships, at least for the men. Here’s an idea: They need a seperate division for the pro’s who don’t want to draft. have them start 20-30min ahead of the rest of the field. give them about 10 marshalls and 1st drafting penalty is an auto DQ.
Actually that’s not a bad penalty to implement. Or a 15 min sin bin stop.
There is a lot of truth in your thread. Disappointing. I am a big fan of Norman Stadler not only because of his athleticism but also his sportmanship and integrity.
I recently had the pleasure of riding with “Uberbiker” Norman Stadler on a training ride and it was a lot of fun. Read about it here:
The question that always gets me, as bad as the men’s drafting looked, is how in the heck did Nina Kraft get a potentially race costing drafting penalty. Now, I haven’t seen any pictures or clips of her getting the penalty, but it sure seems inconsistent with what I saw in the Men’s race.
Not wanting to start a flame here, but don’t use triathlon’s issues as a means to diss running.
Fact is, IronDuck (below your post) is right when he says “triathlon is not a legitimate sport”.
you are correct as well in asserting that Hell was the rightful owner to the 95 title and I would advance to you that none of the 87-96 pro bike splits are comparable to those from 97-02 because of the assistance the riders in the earlier years got from the fleet of press vehicles. I have an old issue of Triathlete that shows Scott Molina in a full tuck not 6 feet off the back of an enormous ABC truck, cameraman hanging out the back. It looked like pure motorpacing!!
And if you dont believe the statement about the 87-96 races, first talk to any top 15 male who raced in those days and if they are honest (I have heard it personally from 3 athletes) they will confirm this dirty secret.
Running: say what you will about wimpy chests and arms but at least the competitors are self-propelled and there is no way to make yourself run faster than you are able except by absorbing pain. (And dont start about Regina Jacobs, etc....if you think triathlon is any cleaner than running or swimming you are smoking crack. Triathlon has flown under the radar screen largely because, as stated above, it is a fringe sport.)
Man, you got me ALL wrong! I wasn’t dissing running at all. It was in the context of race walking, if you don’t like the (race walking) rules you can always take up running, that’s all.
I agree with you for the most part, until 1996 drafting was rampant at IMH and it was just after ITU started to have a draft-legal World Cup that things improved. In fact, you can say that IM racing got cleaner (not clean) because of the ITU.
Now I would never start get started on RJ or on triathlon being a cleaner sport. I’m always suspicious of older athletes performing very well and so I was always very suspicious of RJ’s performances, as I am very suspicious of the amazing performances of top over 40 AG athletes.
The reality is that Reid should not be stripped of his title because he is in a sport that allows you to do things .
Oh, come on people! We’d have to take away at least two of Allen’s titles, John Howard’s, at least 3-4 of Paula’s…to say nothing of the lack of drug testing during the LVL “era”.
The idea is to be the first across the line. All the weak runners always blast off the front on the bike, fade on the run and complain about drafting. If Stadler had ridden on Reid’s wheel the whole race, Peter would have still outrun the bastard by 10 minutes.
Nothing worse than a sore loser…I read these interviews and I think I’m reading something from the NBA…
Although drafting may have changed the outcome of the race, the rules are rules. If someone takes advantage of a rule like supplementing creatine or caffeine, would you consider putting an asterisk next to their name? If Stadler would have been in the group would he have won the race anyway? (my guess is no) And if there were penalties given out to the riders in the group would he have won? (better question)
“If Stadler had ridden on Reid’s wheel the whole race, Peter would have still outrun the bastard by 10 minutes.”
This is not the question, Julian. It is more like this :
If Reid hadn’t benefitted from the drafting during the bike, would he have been as close from Stadler as he was at the end of the bike, and if yes, at what cost. Let’s suppose he had been as close but putting much more effort to do it, would he have run as fast and caught Stadler so easily??? If he had put the same effort on the bike and had ended the bike with 15 minutes on Stadler, would it have been a real race in the end ? It is likely, and the show would have been better for everyone.
Maybe Reid would have still won, maybe not.
Anyway, hats off to him for delivering such a good marathon. But this is proof that drafting is bad for the image of the sport : there will always be a shadow on such fantastic performances until we can/want to (in the case of Ironman for the pro men it is more wanting than being able, c’mon, only 30 guys at most to watch, and not all together at the start of the bike like in ITU) tackle the issue seriously.
Word from my friend who is a USTA race official is that Charlie Crawford is having a pow-wow with RDs and other officials in FEB to discuss the drafting issue(s). Hopefully I will stand corrected about the lack of willingness to effect real change in multisport.
To my eye the triathlon industry seems to be moving most steadfastly in the direction of increasing participant numbers, primarily. Preserving the grass roots tradition of the sport is a lesser goal it seems. The pioneers of the sport are given their due for the contributions they made, but otherwise the current package bears little resemblance to the original model. Some say this is positive.
The rules state that you are not allowed to draft. A group of riders then clearly draft without penalty. This is why Ironman is not a legitimate sport.
If Reid would not have had the help on the bike then he would not have finished as fast. Then he would have had to have run a better marathon than he did. Do you think he could have shaved 12 minutes off of the time he put in?
But I still say that Reid acted within the rules or lack there of enforcement of the rules so he deserves the title of Ironman World Champion.
All Ironman has to do to become a legitimate sport is either drop the no drafting rule that they don’t enforce or enforce it very strictly. Make the penalty so sever that riders will not risk drafting at any costs. Then enforce it!
“If Reid would not have had the help on the bike then he would not have finished as fast. Then he would have had to have run a better marathon than he did. Do you think he could have shaved 12 minutes off of the time he put in?”
That’s exactly what I am saying !!!
“All Ironman has to do to become a legitimate sport is either drop the no drafting rule that they don’t enforce or enforce it very strictly. Make the penalty so sever that riders will not risk drafting at any costs. Then enforce it!”
That’s exactly what I am saying too, except that I don’t want them to allow drafting in long distance, that would be silly (it already is for the olympic distance, although I have to admit that it would be (was) impossible to enforce in this case).
Couple follow ups to my original point and responses:
Don’t start “bashing” Stadler. All he did was race in the spirit of Triathlon. It was the comments of the other Pros speaking of respecting him for what he did, more than anything else, that set me off.
If there was no benefit to Reid—“he would have beat him by 10 minutes regardless”–why did he (in his own words) “circle through”? We will never know if he could have still run Stadler down because he did not have the courage to try to break away. But to claim little or no benefit is silly. The first time (we will never know how many times there were) Reid “circled through”, he was no longer racing in the spirit of Triathlon. If you are gaining no benefit, you would never let anyone pass you.
How many of you readers of this thread draft when you are out there in your triathlons? My guess is, like me, 99.9% of you do everything in your power to insure that you gain NO benefit from other riders because THAT is the SPIRIT of TRI.
Legitimate sports do everything in their power to get it right according to their own rules. If drafting is illegal, DQ the Pros the first time they are caught drafting. There will be an uproar. But you can be damn sure that they will make sure they never get caught again. It would end this farce in one race. Then we would truly know who is the World Champion.
