PatrickJohnMcCrann.com

As I mentioned in a recent video, triathlon has a very public crisis of drafting right now. Only a week after an athlete video of drafting during Ironman Florida was released, the 70.3 championships were won in a record time of 3:34. Yes, that’s 3 hours and 34 minutes for those of your keeping score at home.

Until recently, one of the few men to ride sub 2 hours in a 70.3 was Bjorn Andersson, at Timberman 70.3 in 2006. In Clearwater, 19 of the 65 pros who finished — approximately 1/3 of the field — went 2:00 flat or better…and then ran world class half marathons (sub-1:10). For the record, Bjorn followed his sub-2:00 hour bike with an almost 1:30 run…still winning this world-class competition by 11 minutes over second place (Michael Lovato)

As my good friend @Soigneur related via Twitter…this is just a joke. Despite the World Triathlon Corporation’s best efforts at branding everything as non-drafting, the evidence points to significant drafting at the pro and age group level. Everyone knows there’s a problem, so I am not going to get into why it happens (or why I think WTC isn’t incentivized to enforce the rules to the letter). I am more interested in figuring out how to fix it. Here’s my proposal for the Ironman distance.

Enforcement: Create a Team of Official Race Marshalls for all US Ironman events.
Call it 12 folks who are hired and trained by head ref Jimmy Riccitello, 8 of whom are on site at any given race. Instead of having to deputize 10-12 strangers every race, this group would work together pretty much all year. Penalty calling and enforcement would be consistent, and the Team would not only get better at their job as the year went on, they would be able to improve how the rules were enforced at repeat venues. In other words, once you’ve officiated Ironman Lake Placid, you get a really good sense of where folks are–and are not–drafting on the course. What you learn this year you can apply next year.

I think you could pay these folks about $500 for the day (or ~$30/hour), give them a $50 per diem for the 3 days they are in town, pay for flights (~$500 each), and put them up in double occupancy hotels (~$100 per night for two people)…for a whopping total cost of $10,000 per event. That’s less than $5 per competitor to make enforcement on the day a reality. Since triathletes are geeks, I bet you could come up with a cool name and a nice jacket and most would join the squad for just the lodging/flight…or for a trip to Kona at the end of the year. Just sayin’.

If you really wanted to go crazy, you could hook them up with radios to talk to each other and a central HQ (imagine no more trying to write numbers down on the back of a moving motorcycle!). They could have Flip Cams to record the drafting violations (no more he-said, she-said). The same folks would move out to the run course as the bike ended, picking set locations to set up a chair with some binoculars and a smartphone. 8 folks across a 6.55-mile two loop course is pretty good, and they could just upload a list of the folks getting outside assistance, littering, running with earphones, etc.

Standards: Relax the Non-Drafting Rules in Certain Event Specific Locations
I think it’s crazy that a set of (relatively) broken rules are being applied across the full 112 miles. At Ironman Florida, for example the first few miles on Front Beach road are just mayhem as everyone gets sorted out. Let the athletes ride safely / on their own for the first few miles (I think it’s six) and then begin enforcement when the road opens up shortly thereafter. I can think of similar situations at Placid, Arizona, Coeur d’Alene, etc., where this would be a practical and useful approach to managing the race.

Get Public: Start Talking About Penalties
For a sport that lives online, there is very little discussion or available information about drafting and/or penalties. I think a little public shaming would really help sort things out as there are no social or peer consequences to being caught. In addition to disqualifying those who should be DQed, why not make the names of the other offenders red on the results list? Or adding them to a master annual list of folks who have been cited? Bet you could start tracking trends by race and by athlete…after all maybe Tri Timmy drafts all the time? Maybe the next race they have to race with a scarlet number? (Okay, that last part was a bit over the top, but you get the idea.)

Imagine a day when as your friends are tracking you online, they get instantly notified via Ironmanlive.com that you are sitting in a penalty tent (or that you’ll have to run extra laps, whatever). Drafting/cheating takes on a whole new meaning if your official race results clearly state a penalty.

Accountability: Triathlon Needs A Code of Ethics
I think anyone who wants to race not only should sign the waiver, they sign “the code” at every race. It simply states that they agree to race fairly, safely, and with integrity. This helps keep people “more” honest (really, it does work on a basic level) and would allow WTC to raise the stakes on enforcing the rules. If someone is caught drafting or are penalized more than once a year, why not “suspend” them for 6-months? A year? No refunds…no complaints. There’s a lot more you can do with this…but I am running out of steam.

Conclusion
I don’t think this solves everything, but it would make the officiating consistent and I believe more effective. There will always be outliers (undeserved penalties), and there are lot of other factors, including improved course selection, that could help.

At the end of the day, the participants deserve a better, more fair race experience. And not just those trying to get to Kona…a well-officiated race is better for everyone. Traveling to six or more Ironman events a year, I see all sorts of violations and rule-bendage (and breakage), but this doesn’t have to continue. For the mere price of $5 per athlete per race, we could have a pretty solid solution that doesn’t involve wiring bikes, tagging athletes, or moving satellites.

What do you think?

Tweet This Post 

This entry was posted and is filed under Ironman, Triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.