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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 September 9, 2005 09:30 PM | More in: Triathlon
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