Wave Starts Logic

Triathlon Forum
1

Last year it seemed there was a fair amount of experimentation on wave ordering. Normally the old and fat guys (clydes) were last which always baffled me - that meant it would extend the overall race time because undoubtably SOME of that wave was going to be really slow. This also had safety concerns, IMHO because now you have the 2 groups least able to deal with heat, in the bulk of the heat. Double whammy.

Now this year, they’re back to be stuck at or near the back again.

Steelhead, last year, had the clydes stuck AFTER the competitive and stereo-typically speedy folks. It seemed like a great idea and I saw almost now issues on the field myself of crowding, etc. Look no flames about how SOME people of this group or that group are speedy and SOME people are not-speedy - whatever, of course there are exceptions. I am talking GENERALIZATIONS here.

So I’d love to hear from some RD’s or someone with RD experience why NOT modify this order to try help compress overall time (less time you need Vols, etc) and so on.

The primary argument I have heard is some of that slower crowd is “in the way” which I simply don’t buy because once the super-speedies are gone, the MOP attitude is far more relaxed about passing and being passed, that the BOPs

So order the waves

  1. FOP AG’s - elite, Men 25-39, Women 30-39(?)
  2. BOP AG’s - old men/women, Clydes/Athenas, etc
  3. MOP AG’s - younge men/women, whatever is left

This places the BOP’s to end “closer” to the MOP’s. In a perfect world, you’d stick the BOP’s, then MOP’s, then FOP’s - but I totally get that some BOP newbie could ruin the race for some FOPers by not knowing “the rules” of passing, etc and getting in the way. That’s not safe for either person. So cool, get the FOP’s out the door FIRST.

So my main question is WHY NOT do this? WHY do so many races have the same freakin start structure?

2

You are suggesting that something be changed from the way it already is. Someone obviously sat down and figured this out a long time ago so there is no need to redo that. I mean just think about it, our government would fall to pieces if they tried to institute this “change” program you advocate.

I like you idea depending on the course (hilly better), and not 50 turns, and number of participants, and if those get corrected your idea should work.

3

Though I didn’t pay attention at the time, it seems to me that the Chattanooga Tri recently was organised like you suggest. I’m in the W45-49 and my friend who is W50-54 went quite a bit before me. The M35-39 seemed to be at the front. During the swim I was perplexed to be swum over a few times as usually everyone around me is pretty slow. Then I realised it was the fast ones from the under 30 crowd. Confirmed this on the bike as I went by a few of the 25 yo guys who were still close enough for me to catch.

I thought it made sense as it kept the finishing times “more” equal.

4

Logic would in my mind dictate a whole new kind of wave start. It should be done by category of athlete, either like cycling where you have a classification, or self seeded, where I imagine their could be more difficulties. That would limit the # of swimmers trampled over by following waves of people, greatly reduce the draft-passing on the cycling, and allow for overall AG’ers to race it out down the chute at the end. And it would do all of this while still maintaining age group battles, as those people would in theory begin at the same time anyway.

5

There is no ideal set up. There are often a handful of really fast (FOP overall) people in nearly every age group 'til usually 55. So someone is always upset about the order.