USAT Expert wave proposal

Triathlon Forum
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For all that are interested, the USAT Age Group Commission (agc) has been discussing the elite wave issue. To avoid name confusion with pro/elites, the agc is leaning toward the term “expert” wave. This idea and the rationale behind it has been previously discussed on slowtwitch–see post:

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=64059;search_string=elite%20wave;#64059

The latest version of the tentative proposal (below) will be published in the next USAT “triathlon times” newsletter. Here it is (below) for you all to examine. Please look at the previous thread and please comment on this version if you have thoughts about changes or improvements. As always, thanks for your time.

AGC EXPERT WAVE PROPOSAL:
The USAT recommends that all sanctioned triathlons of distance half-ironman and below have an “expert” division available for triathletes. The USAT recommends that triathletes in the expert category (at the discretion of the race director) one of the following:

(1) be placed in their own swim wave, and that this swim wave be the first swim wave of the day, OR

(2) that the expert category triathletes simply be allowed to start ALONG WITH the first swim wave of the day, whichever category or age group that may be, OR

(3) in the case of a triathlon with a “time trial start”, that the expert category triathletes be allowed to start in their own swim wave, and that this swim wave be sent off just prior to the beginning of the time trial start of the age-group triathletes.

The choice of the above options will be decided by the race director, as he/she considers factors such as the likely number of expert triathletes racing, the format of the triathlon, the total size of the race, and the total number of swim waves. Expert division triathletes will not be eligible for age-group awards. However, the USAT does recommend that expert triathletes be eligible for OVERALL finish awards, including prize money if it is offered. Expert division triathletes’ finish results will not be eligible for age-group USAT national rankings for the triathlons in which they competed in the expert category.

Race Directors may at their discretion open the expert division to all interested athletes, or use fair and appropriate general entry criteria using an ‘honor system’. In any case, the USAT recommends that prospective expert wave entrants read, understand, and sign the following:

“The expert division is intended for highly experienced triathletes who have previously finished triathlons of similar length within the top 10% overall (by respective gender) AND expect to do so again in this triathlon. Expert wave triathletes are not eligible for age-group prizes/awards or age-group rankings, but are eligible for overall prizes/awards.”
“I have read and understand this and meet these criteria, signed (the athlete’s signature), (the date)”

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…reduces the likelihood of slower athletes feeling highly demoralized by being continuously passed during the entire triathlon…

What other sport concerns itself with competing athletes feeling “demoralized?” this is absurd. maybe the USAT should offer a mandatory self-esteem seminar after each race, too.

There are some valid issues I think they are trying to address with the proposal, but I would think that offering a “First Timers” wave would take care of most of those concerns. Or maybe you make a “first timers” wave and a “not a first-timer, but i wanna hang out in the back” wave. =)

3

This proposal will add greatly to the competitiveness for faster athletes, as they will know exactly where they stand as they race: the faster athletes will no longer have to race the “ghost” of another competitor who started in a previous (or later) wave.

Though it is pretty cool when someone who starts among the masses comes out of nowhere and captures the overall title, defeating all those who anointed themselves “expert.” Happened at St. Anthony’s in 03.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/04/28/Sports/And_the_winner_isn_t_.shtml

ST. PETERSBURG - Matt Nuffort might not know this yet. You want to tell him?

The Lexington, Mass., resident had been waiting for the 2003 St. Anthony’s Triathlon since last year’s race, when he finished second and first realized he could have success against the best amateurs in the sport.

Training back home last winter was brutal with no biking weather from Thanksgiving to March. Time was another hurdle. More often than not, workout time was 10 p.m., after long days as the chief of engineering in the Air Force’s global air traffic management program.

Business has been a little hectic these past few months, you know.

Yet Sunday played out very well, even as Nuffort said his legs felt “like jelly” at the start of the 6.2-mile run. A swimmer at Princeton, running is not his strong suit.

He found a rhythm, though, and with the leader in sight and a mile left, the 27-year-old decided to go for it.

“It’s just a temporary pain for a longtime glory,” he said afterward, beaming.

Uh, you tell him.

Tell him he crossed the finish line first at St. Anthony’s in a fabulous come-from-behind victory … but finished second.

That was the discovery Sunday afternoon, several hours after a new wrinkle in the age-group event was supposed to identify the top amateur from its field of 2,000.

An “open” wave, the first off Spa Beach at 7:30 a.m., sent a group of elite men and women plus military members on a journey of .93-mile swimming, 24.8-mile biking and 6.2-mile running in hopes of determining an overall champion.

On the women’s side, the wave helped welcome a St. Anthony’s veteran back to the winner’s circle.

On the men’s side, unbeknownst to everyone in attendance, the wave crashed.

Linda Neary of North Palm Beach surprised herself with a third St. Anthony’s women’s title, and Bill Schultz of Bowie, Md., was the fastest on the men’s side.

Schultz, however, crossed the finish line about 30 minutes after Nuffort.

Competing in the men’s 25-29 age group and included in a wave that started at 8:05 a.m., the former Florida State swimmer finished in 1 hour, 53 minutes, 8 seconds.

In previous St. Anthony’s age-group events, the 25-year-old would have been discovered as the winner.

The lack of an open wave meant reviewing top times from all of the waves at the end of the day determined the winner.

“You wouldn’t know unless you went through the results,” St. Anthony’s race director Steve Meckfessel said. "I guess we just didn’t do a thorough enough job researching the results.

“One of the primary reasons why we put the open category in place was to hopefully identify the clear-cut winner, the first person who crosses the line. Here we are, back to square one with truly having to wait until we have all the finishers in and sort out the times.”

Sorted, the times on the women’s side were fine thanks to the 1995 and 1998 champion. Had Neary, 39, not flown by 24-year-old Jessica Jones of Bellaire, Texas, on the run to win in 2:07:40, the women’s champion also could have come from outside the open wave.

Linley Smith-Wheeler of Atlanta owned the second-fastest time, 2:08:35. Smith-Wheeler, 32, competed in the 30-34 age group that began 20 minutes after Neary’s.

Neary avenged her 2002 second-place finish.

Nuffort’s 1:55:14 was more than five minutes faster than his 2002 second-place time, yet even two more minutes faster would not have been enough.

Schultz, whom his father believed had never raced in St. Anthony’s before but had been training well for several months, including an October sprint triathlon victory in Maryland, was the champion.

And, like Nuffort, out of touch and out of sight. Off to dinner with friends, Bill Schultz Sr. said, then back to the daily grind of training today to prepare for another USA Triathlon points race Sunday in Clermont.

When the error was discovered, the thousands of competitors and fans who had filled Straub Park were a memory.

Temporary barricades were being removed. Trucks maneuvered throughout the grass to prepare for loading.

And under a big tent in the middle of it all where Nuffort had been saluted two hours earlier for owning the best overall time, a stage came down.

Race organizers could not locate Nuffort, and messages left at his home and office at Fort Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts on Sunday evening were not returned.

Perhaps he started on the way home after St. Anthony’s and is back in Massachusetts today, still basking in the glow of becoming a St. Anthony’s champion.

You want to tell him?

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Happened at Columbia '03 and '04 as well. Top 2 amateur finishers in '03 and top amateur in '04 came out of the normal age group waves. Like St Anthony’s, in '03 they still gave out the overall awards to the open/expert wave people only.

Despite that potential short-coming, expert waves is definitely the way to go. I enjoy myself a lot more and perform much better racing people head to head at my ability level that being off the front by myself and then having to calculate split differentials at turnaround points on guys on later waves.

The key is to encourage the top athletes to sign up for the expert waves. One nugget USAT could offer is to create an expert wave ranking category outside of the normal age group rankings. This way people can still participate in the rankings and not interfere with the rankings of the folks participating in the age group waves.

I always wanted to quantify how much I’d get my butt kicked by the John Rebacks of the world…

Chris

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“Expert wave triathletes are not eligible for age-group prizes/awards or age-group rankings, but are eligible for overall prizes/awards”

Does that mean one can take home the prize money without a Pro card? I’ve heard pros at Vineman squabble over getting 5th place money when they were the 4th pro but 5th OV. (and the AG didn’t get to take the 4th place money-no pro card)

Not that I think I’d be in there, but it’s fun to see an AG rock the day and place “in the money”.

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It sounds like a step in the right direction. I hate waiting around 15 minutes to see if some punk in the 25-29 wave beats me.

I think they need to come up with some more incentives for people to enter the Expert wave. They should definitely compile national rankings for the Experts.

I think, just as the Experts aren’t eligible for AG awards, AG athletes are then ineligible for overall awards. So even if you have a faster time in a AG wave, they aren’t the winners. Yeah is sucks for that person, but hey, they should have stepped up to the Expert wave, not to mention the fact that they may have benefited from drafting etc. Only a newbie in their first race, who, unbeknownst to them, is blazingly fast.

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just a note - at St Anthony’s 2003 the open/elite awards were given to people in the open/elite wave, there was no ‘overall winner’ award given.

"Expert division triathletes’ finish results will not be eligible for age-group USAT national rankings for the triathlons in which they competed in the expert category. "

  • I’ll continue to harp that the biggest problem with this idea being that making the ‘experts’ ineligible for AG ranking is the biggest disincentive to some of them racing in the expert category (same argument I was making last year in the other thread).

I agree with Chris, there needs to be an expert ranking system to remove the disincentive to participating in the category. Some folks want that All-american rank and who can blame them when there are decent sponsorships on the line for top AGers? Top expert ranking would be more prestigious than top M30-34 for example. My2c

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Though it is pretty cool when someone who starts among the masses comes out of nowhere and captures the overall title, defeating all those who anointed themselves “expert.”

Not referring to st. anthonys, it is not so cool at all when that someone who started among the masses drafts extensively on the more crowded bike course to get a good bike time and a ‘fresh legs’ run time and then places very highly, while the first-wavers actually have to power through those events with pure horsepower and no assistance.

I have witnessed this many times (with both males and females) at races I have done. And this proposal will perhaps put a good dent in this issue as well.

In any case, it seems that your news report of st. anthonys further reinforces the frustration of folks trying to see who actually did well that day. The current method of having a million age-based start waves has some very major drawbacks, especially as the sport and some of its fastest competitors mature.

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there needs to be an expert ranking system to remove the disincentive to participating in the category

To all, thanks for the comments. Please keep them coming.

This particular comment is very interesting and I agree with it. My hope is that when/if this proposal is accepted and put into practice, eventually a USAT expert ranking will be inevitable.

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Greg, above all there needs to be an expert ranking system if we are to keep the present ranking system. This should also mean that an expert should have to declare himself when he registers with USAT for the year or once he declares for an expert wave, he cannot flip back to AG for subsequent races. It is patently unfair for the normal age grouper, in one race, to have to compete for ranking points against an “expert” in an age group wave, when his counterpart, in another race, does not because that same expert is in an expert wave. Our present ranking system would make as much as a 5 point swing in ranking points because of this.
This is why there needs to be a ranking system where everyone is competing against a NATIONAL STANDARD not some standard set be each winner of an individual race.

Bob Sigerson

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Let me shoot some holes into this…

The proposal doesn’t require there to be expert waves. It recommends, but doesn’t require the race director to have them.

Expert rankings - What happens, Sig, when an “expert” does a race with an “expert” wave, then does a race later that season that doesn’t have an “expert” wave? The ranking computer isn’t sophisticated enough to separate out “experts” in the rankings without tagging their membership class/account as such. Also, we’d need a nationwide standard to define “expert”, rather than a local standard/perogative like the proposal recommends.

An expert is still in the eye of the beholder, or race director. Columbia and Breezy Point are two races I did this year with open waves. I raced open in one of them, because I didn’t meet the race director’s standard for the other.

Kona qualifiers, or the like: When you separate out the “experts” from the rest of their age peers, this will surely ignite debates on different competitive conditions cause him/her to qualify/not qualify.

Top 10%, by gender, is still a big wave in places like Chicago, St. Anthony’s, L.A., NYC,…

Ditto the thoughs about having an incentive to race the “expert” wave. Yet, even if this proposal becomes accepted in some form, there will always be some case where the incentive to race in the AG rather than the expert wave is bigger. (Example: Race “expert” at Breezy Point because that’s where the cash prizes are, not in the AG. Race AG at North Carolina Tri Series races included in the USAT Mid-Atlantic Grand Prix, because that’s where the cash prizes are, not in the “elite”.)

I’m not convinced that there’s enough frustration or dissatisfaction from the spectators about the first person across the line not necessarily being the winner.

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I’m not convinced that there’s enough frustration or dissatisfaction from the spectators about the first person across the line not necessarily being the winner
talk with media folks or those who know PR and you may find otherwise. It is a big impediment toward others understanding our sport.

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Here is a my vision of the expert wave proposal. First of all you can rank the athletes, same as all others are ranked. It’s now based on a percentage of the winners time, you just have to create a new expert category, give them the points, and there you have it, an expert category ranking. You can already compare yourself with every other age group under this system, so why not the expert category. They should not get any prize money, unless it is under the $5000 guideline now set by USAT. If they want to go for the big money, go pro…If you want to bounce back into the age groups, go for it. You do your 3 races as an age grouper, then you get your ranking. Just because you are good, dosen’t mean that you should be penalized for it. If you do enough races in both categories, then you get two rankings. What’s wrong with that? Maybe it hurts the feelings of the other age groupers that aren’t quite as good, you know, the ones that fool themselves that they are on top, only because the really good athletes race in another division. The qualifying standard of a % of the winners time is a good start for qualifying for the wave, just have to figure out what %. No age group awards for the wave, but why not have their own awards.

This could actually be fun, imagine Dave Scott, Scott Molina, Pete Kain, Mike Smith,Tim Sheeper, and Jeff CUddeback in a wave racing together. Throw in a few Rebaks and other soon to be pros, and it might be an interesting race. Otherwise, they all race in different starts, and pretty much just get lost in the shuffle…

Like I said before, who does it hurt???

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Here’s another idea: Self-seeded waves for all waves and no special “expert” wave. With chip timing, this is not hard to do. The Turtleman Triathlon experimented with this last year and it looks like 80% of competitors liked it http://www.turtleman.org/ This year, they are changing it slightly by allowing wave selection at body marking so that you don’t have to queue up so early to get into the wave you want. You just have to get to body marking early.

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Great ideas. Keep them coming.

$5000 price money?? HA!! How about $50 bucks prize money? The prize money referred to in the proposal is the “small potatoes” prize money one typically sees for local amateur races with under 1000 racers, like $300 for first, $200 for second, $100 for third, $50 for fourth, same for women, etc.

Maybe the agc should specify that cash/value limit in the proposal. Is the $5000 you refer to the total purse size, or the limit of an individual prize?

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Very interesting and very innovative. Did you know if they had a system for keeping the first swim wave swamped with popularity? Or was that an non-issue?

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I think the $5000 referred to is the cut off where you need an elite license and can not take a step backward into the AG ranks until your card expires. Under $5000 and anyone can jump into the elite wave as I understand it. I think if your gooing to have an expert category then there needs to be a qualification standard and a card for it so people are making their minds up to either go expert or stay strictly AG. It would also be a good stepping stone for up and comers to test the waters at a higher level before making the jumo into the elite ranks.

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I’m not convinced that there’s enough frustration or dissatisfaction from the spectators about the first person across the line not necessarily being the winner
talk with media folks or those who know PR and you may find otherwise. It is a big impediment toward others understanding our sport.

No. It’s a slight impediment toward others understanding what they are seeing. They have no trouble understanding triathlon when they read it in a magazine. They understand who won the race if they see the results printed in the newspaper or listed on the internet. As for the spectators, I think they understand quite a bit about what they are seeing. They witness triathlon and the challenge that makes the sport uniquely special. They don’t necessarily understand why the first person to cross didn’t have the fastest time, and I admit that it’s difficult for a race announcer to attempt to communicate the reasons for it.

One other thing about the proposal…how is it going to work at USAT Age Group Nationals? Because if you recommend it for USAT races, but don’t have it at Nationals (USAT’s flagship event, and the standard for others), no one will give the recommendation any respect.

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The $5000 was the total purse, so split between men and women, it would probably never be more than a $1000 for first, and on down form there. And I still haven’t heard any good arguements for making someone register as an elite for the entire year. There are lots of older guys and girls out there that can be competitive in an elite division, but would also choose to race age group. They are not aspiring pros, maybe retired pros, but non the less, they are now competiting among the masses. Like I said before, I would like to see Dave Scott pitch up against some of the current pros in a hot, long, tough race, but I wouldn’t want to exclude hin from the 50-54 age group at nationals, if he so chose. It might do the current crop of aspiring pros good to have to go head to head with some seasoned veterans on ocasion, just don’t penalize those veterans for still being good at what they do. Once again I ask, “Who does it hurt?”

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I have raced since 1984 and I agree that it does not appear to be critical to register as an elite for an entire year. If one did, then there is the problem of a race director who still has no elite category in his/her race for whatever reason. What then?

Unrelated, so what do you think of this (a small tweak of language)?: same as above, except, “However, the USAT does recommend that expert triathletes be eligible for OVERALL finish awards, including prize money (up to a $5,000 total purse), if it is offered.” ?