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September 09, 2005
USAT Officials...got to love them
First I want to start by stating that I am a big supporter of USAT and the officials program. It is great to have USAT officials at our races. They do the best they can to help maintain a safe and fair field of play for the athletes. It is a thankless job and it also takes the heat off of me when an athlete gets in my face complaining about another athlete that was cheating or drafting. Some of these athletes are relentless and will not give up. It sort of reminds me of a horse fly that you keep brushing away, only to have it come right back to you. What many athletes do not understand is that I don't make the calls, I just assess the penalties the USAT Officials give to me. When I receive the list it is just a sheet with race numbers and times. I do not even associate names with the penalties until an athlete comes up to me with a question about a penalty.
Officiating varies in each region. Although some of you may disagree with me, especially those of you who have been penalized in the past, I think the Florida region has some of the best officials around. They are very proactive when it comes to enforcing the rules. That is not always the case in other regions.
As a race director, it disturbs me when the motorcyclists don't show and we end up having the officials stand around in the transition area giving dismount and racking penalties. At our TriAmerica Irving race I almost had a fit when I was walking over to tune the ChampionChip systems at the transition area and I saw a big dismount line painted on the ground in front of the bike start and bike finish structures. I knew it was not the work of my staff, they know better. I am not a big fan of dismount lines unless they are absolutely required for safety reasons. Even then I would rather have a couple of volunteers doing the work rather than a static line. I prefer to have a dismount zone and my policy has always been that athletes mount their bikes after they cross the timing mats and dismount before you hit the mats. Even though I explained my position on dismount lines, dismount penalties were assessed. Sure, there are some athletes that deserve a penalty when they come flying back in to the transition area with complete disregard for the dismount zone or the instructions provided by the volunteers.
At St. Paul it was bar end plug penalties that irked me. Much to my disappointment, I had to assess more bar end plug penalties at that one race than I have at the previous 15-20 events I have scored combined. I have nothing against the rule, it is a very important one for safety reasons. An unplugged bar end can gore another athlete and could even be fatal. This is where being proactive comes in. While the transition volunteers try to check for missing plugs when athletes are checking in, many slip by unchecked in the early morning chaos. When an athlete is missing a plug, we go out of our way to help them get plugged, even if we have to use a plastic water bottle cap and tape to get the job done. In most cases the officials walk around the transition area before the race starts checking for things like missing bar end plugs, unsafe equipment, or incorrectly racked bikes. They are not doing it so they can penalize the athletes, they are doing it so they can give our race announcer a list of race numbers to announce. This way the athletes can be made aware of the problem and have the opportunity to correct it before the race starts. Just listen to TJ, our race announcer, in the morning and you'll see how proactive we are.
At TriAmerica Avon-Vail, the penalty of the day was missing race numbers. The officials wrote up at least 8-10 penalties for missing race numbers on the run. Sure athletes should know better, we even highlight that rule in our printed pre-race instructions. Usually we have volunteers at the start of the run to make sure athletes have their run number on and that it is visible. But volunteers were scarce in Colorado. Next season we’ll make sure we have a large sign at the run start reminding athletes to make sure their race number is on and visible.
For transition penalties I am going to be more proactive as well. When I have the pre-race briefing with the head official, I'm going to make sure they understand that we prefer that athletes be made aware of transition and equipment infractions before the start of the race if at all possible. At least athletes will then have a chance to correct the problem before the race start, rather than be surprised when they finish and see the penalty list.
Posted by Fred at 09:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Triathlon
September 01, 2005
Six down, two more to go...
It was great to have a successful and almost flawless race in St. Paul last week. For once the weather gods were on our side. While severe storms moved in on Friday morning, they quickly moved east and left beautiful weather in their wake. This was our third year in the Twin Cities with TriAmerica, but it was our first year at the Lake Phalen venue. Lake Phalen is a great triathlon venue. It has a crystal clear lake that just happens to have a 3.1 mile mostly shaded jogging path around it. If it just had more parking nearby it would be perfect.
Things were a bit shaky leading up tot the race. It was an uphill battle to get local approval. For starters we had mucked-up an earlier attempt to hold the race at Lake Phalen back in 2003. My ops team did not stay on top of the permitting process so we ended up missing a deadline and had to scramble to find another venue in the St. Paul market with less than 30 days to go before race day. Somehow everything fell into place and we managed to pull the race off at nearby Tanner's Lake Park in Oakdale. Much to my amazement even received top honors as the Midwest Events Magazine's Athlete's Choice Race of the Year. The Lake Phalen venue was not an option last year because of a scheduling conflict, so we returned to Oakdale. This year we fought hard to bring the race to Lake Phalen. Our first obstacle was that our race weekend would be the last weekend the swimming beach is open. We were informed that the park staff and lifeguards would be busy closing everything down for the season and would not have time to deal with us. Once we convinced them that were a turn-key operation, things started moving forward.
The next hurdle was the state fair. We were told it would be a challenge to find police officers and volunteers to work the race because of the fair. All of our conversations with key people involved the state fair. All I kept hearing was state fair this and state fair that…if it wasn't for the state fair….any weekend but state fair weekend, etc.. I thought to myself, good grief, does this entire town shut down for the fair? It lasts for two whole weeks and certainly not everyone in town has funnel cakes and stuffed animals on their minds.
The bike course also turned out to be another challenge for us. Our original proposed bike course was shot down because a previous running event used a similar course and had a major impact on the bus routes. Mr. Bus Manager was not about to have that happen again so a new course was in order. The police did a great job coming up with a course option that was workable.
We also were fortunate to have Mary Anderson on board as our local event coordinator to tie up all the loose ends before we arrived in town.
The most challenging part of the entire weekend was that my entire staff was sick with some sort flue-type bug and I was walking around like a cripple with my bad back. Thank goodness we were surrounded by a bunch of fit, healthy people!
Posted by Fred at 08:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America
Katrina
You really get a reality check when you see the damage that hurricane Katrina did in the northern Gulf. When Katrina was forming in the Atlantic, we were already on a plane heading up to our TriAmerica St. Paul race. At that time no one had any idea what the storm was going to do. All of Florida was on her radar screen. After we arrived in St. Paul I was relieved to see she had drifted to the west, lessening the chance that she would skirt up Florida's west coast. I doubt my company could take another hit like the one we took from last year's storms.
What was sort of scary was that last year we had our TriAmerica New Orleans race on the last Sunday in August. Had we moved forward with the New Orleans race this year, we would have been right up there in the thick of things last weekend. The addition of our Vail and Zion races forced us to put new Orleans on hold for 2005.
I read where fellow race promoter Bill Burke, who lives in New Orleans, has a flooded house and warehouse. I just cannot imagine what he must be dealing with right now. Our thoughts are with him.
Posted by Fred at 03:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Triathlon
