What’s up with Spencer and all the dq’s? Is he a marked man by the officials? This guy is a great athlete and surely has been in the sport long enough to know what to do and what not to do.
Is he being targeted since his dq in Hawaii and/or beating the doping charges?
He is one of my favorites in the sport, but this has got to be discouraging for him. Any insights?
Ray
Seriously, I totally agree. The man must be really jinxed with all these DQ’s. I hope the best for him. He is one of my tri heros from the early 90’s and would like to see him come back and clean up at the few races. By the way, he did fly pretty good at Ironman Florida a few years ago leading from wire to wire in a very impressive performance after Slowman jacked his seat forward all the way on the rails and got him out of the roadie position he was using from his road racing sabbatical !
The irony is that – after Luc van Lierde – Spencer is probably my favorite triathlete.
Maybe some of the top pros would pay me in cool gear NOT to like them… maybe I’m the jinx.
Is he being targeted since his dq in Hawaii and/or beating the doping charges?
Funny that was the first thought I had when I heard the news.
What’s up with Spencer and all the dq’s? Is he a marked man by the officials? This guy is a great athlete and surely has been in the sport long enough to know what to do and what not to do.
Is he being targeted since his dq in Hawaii and/or beating the doping charges?
He is one of my favorites in the sport, but this has got to be discouraging for him. Any insights?
Ray
“Discouraging”?! Man… how about pull his head out of his ass? You can be “targeted” like Saddam Hussein, but if you don’t do anything to get tagged being targeted is not an issue…
Interesting gossip topic. But I HIGHLY doubt that the collective race referees and officials are so devoid of ethics that so many would go along with such a scheme.
I’ve met him a couple of times. I think he’s as clean a racer as anyone else but I feel a lot of the guys push the drafting envelope as far as it will go. Yes i think Spencer is targeted…
& I thought I was being clever by not expressing an opinion, Bri.
For me it’s kind of hard to feel sorry for a guy that got off a doping penalty on a technicality…
Smartass, please give it a break. You are innocent until proven guilty. He is innocent of doping, but clearly guilty of the DQ infractions at the races where he was DQ’d. And I doubt every official is picking on him.
If you know what happened in his case, you know that he’s more guilty than Marion Jones, at least she never tested positive.
Hey Smartass coach. All I know is what I read in the trade press. A positive test does not make you guilty automatically. It would be like me calling you a murderer just cause I found some evidence that a murder took place in you city. You can be a suspect, but not convicted. You need to go through the whole process. At the end of the road, if the guy gets off the hook , technicality or not, he is innocent. At least that is how the system works. Otherwise, we can all walk around accusing people of things that they may or may not have done and ruin their lives/reputations.
Nah, basically he’s one of the good guys, even speaks good english and all…
Hey Smartass coach. All I know is what I read in the trade press. A positive test does not make you guilty automatically. It would be like me calling you a murderer just cause I found some evidence that a murder took place in you city. You can be a suspect, but not convicted. You need to go through the whole process. At the end of the road, if the guy gets off the hook , technicality or not, he is innocent. At least that is how the system works. Otherwise, we can all walk around accusing people of things that they may or may not have done and ruin their lives/reputations.
so by your logic, oj is innocent too?
So what was the technicality? My understanding was the contaminates were the growth hormones or steriod type substances pumped into the steaks that he was consuming to correct iron deficiencies.
It must have been pretty good defence for him to spend the vast amounts that he did in his defence.
Yes, you are either guilty beyond a doubt and thus convicted, or you are innocent. This is why we have courts. Otherwise let’s just go for a public lynching and hang all the damned bastards and get rid of our extensive legal systems and all the lawyers and legislation that goes with it and let opinions decide who is guilty. Might be a lot cheaper but not as fair 
Spencer is not jinxed or targeted. If he was not riding close enough to check then he would not get a penalty. If you KNOW the refs are out for you, why even give them a chance. He is just a dumb bunny.
Jimmy
You are found guilty or not guilty. Innocence has nothing to do with it.
OK, fair enough, I can buy guilty or not guilty :-).
In any event, I agree with the other poster that if you already have a track record of being DQ’d then you want to ride a squeeky clean race !
Dev
I think 3 punctures in a 1/2 IM, getting taken out by an age grouper at a drinks station on the bike and getting your wetsuit zip opened on the swim is pretty unlucky in anyone’s book.