Would like to see employees who decide drug test resource allocation to make use of this data. I hope I’m not too close to the sun if I say there is a lot of overlap between the worst drafters listed and my personal suspicions of pro male athletes.
I would not think so given that the worst offenders are far back in the field
and dont forget it is one of the athletes that has 0 seconds drafting time that has been accused for being on the juice.
so there is 0 evidence that this makes actually sense as you could just as much argue that maybe the guys that dont need to draft dont need to draft because they have other assistance.
I think you are way to fixed on the yo yo
its a bit like if one just would look only at rolling resistance and ignore the aeroness of a tyre.
I guess one of the issues of the low penalty rate is likely based on Frankfurt the week before, the race referees likely went the other extreme, and were holding back too much.
But I’m pretty sure those German officials were very serious about enforcing bottle placement down to the millimeter, bib wearing on the bike, and making sure your goggles got into the appropriate box!
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When the race response highlights yo-yoing is the problem, yes I do look at it.
well look the race report is more like Eric writing about hookless tyres …
it not a scientific report by all means and it does exactly what you want it throws nobody under the bus.
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I’m actually happy that yo-yoing is the issue because I think that’s going to naturally happen….even though by the letter of the rules it’s a violation. But if we see athletes quickly correcting they are essentially trying their best imo to race fair with understanding of its a flowing race reality over 2-4 hours of biking. No one is 100% ever going to sit at 12.0m 100% of time. So some level of acceptance I think can/should be in the conversation. What is that threshold? ~2 mins would seem reasonable imo.
Yoyoing is a big problem. What the yoyoers are doing is using race ranger to calibrate the their optimum draft distance and when it’s time to pass, and use energy, they just back off and relax.
Tell me what affect the two situations have in your race:
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Athlete stays just outside of the draft zone most of the time, but every time they enter the zone, they soft peddle and back up. They do this 50 times in a race.
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Athlete stays just outside of the draft zone most of the time, but every time they enter the draft zone, they make a pass and have to surge past 3-6 cyclists in front of them. They do this 20 times in a race.
Which one is using and which is saving drastically more energy?
Now, further complicate the matter that the athlete in scenario 1 is also preventing a gap from EVER opening up in between so any fair riding athlete can’t legally slot in but has to ride to the front.
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Not the ONLY tool to allocate drug testing but another one. Drafting data is firmer evidence of dishonest racing than any third-party rumour based on a joke. Nobody gets illegal time by accident unless they physically fail an all-out sprint to overtake.
To add to what you said (and I think it’s been mentioned before), those who don’t yo-yo sit at 14-15 meters or more, and the yoyoyers sit at as little as 12.5. That’s the difference that adds up over 4-4.5 hours.
Eight of nineteen women, and five men, managed to have no illegal time, so clearly it can be done. That being said, I agree with you that there has to be some leeway/ discretion. 90-120 seconds seems about right to me.
You get an orange light at 17m and then a blue light at 14m - it would take a very steep hill to make you drift into the red by accident. Any allowance at all, even 2min, would technically condone deliberate yo-yoing - but the way many pros race, dropping back as soon as they see red or even blue - is pretty reasonable. 2min for full, 1min for half is generous enough.
Do you think that 2000 yoyos, with flashing lights, with 0 penalties is a problem ?
All I’m saying is that we’ve had yo-yoing since day 1 of non-draft becuase we’ve never had any accurate way to define the draft zone. So athletes have “yo-yo’d” for decades and only a few times when they truly creep deep into the zone and back out is it then a penalty. So my point is, if your riding at the legal distance and then because of real world actions for a rider in front of you, you creep in and creep all back within 2-3s, that’s not “drafting” violations within the fair play issues that we want. Going from 12m to 11.5 and then back to 12m, that’s not the penalties that we want in our sport. Which is always the whole point of a 20m draft zone, the further back you go, the less “advtange” anything is.
Make your time penalty at the half way part of the run, simply be your illegal time. We’ll then see how quickly those 15s yo-yo’s suddenly become much quicker etc.
But this idea that yo-yoing is now an issue, dude it’s been this way it’s only now that we have an accurate measurement to prove what X draft zone is, now we are actually seeing how much it actually is happening. And again I don’t think many are doing it for the intent “fair play” part of the rules. IE- see how many quickly backed out of the zone, etc.
No I think it’s a reality Marc. It’s a reality when you have 3 officials for 50 pro men and women. It’s why I’ve been advocating that we should eventually want RR to be sorta an “catch all” penalty on the run and not just only a penalty when given by an on-course bike official.
Officials are always going to be the limited resources, so even if we use RR only as a “targeting” your then taking them away from potential other live happening infractions etc. So that’s why it’s sorta a no brainer to me…at some point we absolutely can use this technology to penalize athletes even without an on bike course penalty given.
By default this technology is going to make officials look terrible because by “definition” of the rules, any yo-yo = automatic penalty, etc. So the officials are never going to be able to give out enough penalties to not “look bad”. (it’s the same with the MLB new balls/strikes, there are some really really good officials, and then there are some very bad ones).
But that’s why when I talk about discretion…officials have been officiating with discretion for decades on an athlete “creeping” into the draft zone and then quickly leaving it. Sure you’ll occassionally get pinged for it, and that’s when everyone will complain and call the official an SOB power tripping. But for the most part, going from 12.2-11.8-12.1-11.6-11.9-12.1 has never been an “penalty”. Going from 12.2-10.2-11.2-11.0-10.4 suddenly your now at risk. But athletes have for decades have been “yo-yoing” in and out of the actual prescribed rule book draft zone cus we haven’t had the precise tech to actual measure it that we now have it. In those instances imo no one is trying to “draft”, those instances are generally athletes simply trying to ride to the rule allowances, etc in a real world race where lots of things happen every second that affect your position within said legal peloton (wind, effort, terrain, inattentiveness, lots of factors).
The light goes and you pass. That’s the new name of the game. Period. They wanted this tool. Don’t let them use it to save energy. They now have to use it to race fair and put in the work to make the pass.
Previously, it was understandable that the margin of error in paying attention to a foot or two was going to slide here and there.
Now they get warning lights and YOU MUST PASS lights. Use them or suffer a penalty.
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Except it’s not. The game has not changed, it’s still being officiated by officials as the only person authorized to penalize athletes.
So to that point, it’s why I think 2 things:
- RR will eventually have a catch all authority penalty that is given on run for offienses that aren’t caught by on course officials
- I think will have some “acceptance” of illegal time that is allowed and then X isn’t.
But again I’ve since RR came on, let’s make it real- your illegal time is your penalty. “Period”
Ya, and multiple times in at least other races pros were told when that red light goes it means you have to be passing. The officials should be calling those penalties.
The whole idea of “I’m not getting a big draft benefit” with a couple second yoyo is debunked above. There is a huge self-interest play happening behind this wall of plausible draft deniability that is having an detrimental impact on everyone surrounding the offender in these cases.
DId I miss something, what post debunks it? Cus going from 12.0-11.4-12.0 (while braking) under 5s (and sometimes 3s) imo defeats the purpose any “drafting benefits” imo. But totally fine to agree to disagree.
Huge self interest play here? What self interest are you implying?
If you make everyone around you work harder through essentially blocking, everyone is moving all the way to the front instead of slotting in because you have continually drifted into the red zone and there’s no room for anyone else.
Let’s put it another way. This yoyo athlete, would they be pissed if someone making a pass slotted in where there wasn’t room, but didn’t get a penalty? Would they say, “oh, that’s alright, if they had to push passed 4 more athletes, it would have cost them too much energy so it’s good that they just slotted in front of me.”
No, they wouldn’t. They’d be upset at the slotting in, and say, “if you’re going to make a pass you have to pass the entire group.”
And that was forced by the fact that they were holding ever-so-tightly to that draft zone using the lights, even drifting in and out and refusing to pass themselves.
These athletes are competitively smart and if they get off the bike and everyone is more tired then they themselves are as a result of their racing tactics, it’s a huge win. All that needs to be said is, if you are going to use race ranger to maximize your benefit by calibrating your position in the group, you have to accept the responsibility to pass when the light goes on and it’s safe to do so.