Lobby the USATF: Pull lapped runners at national championships.

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8 years ago 06/28/2015 3:16pm EDT

Anybody know to whom one would lobby at the USATF to get a rule change considered for USATF and Olympic trials races regarding lapped runners?

Numerous 10k racers (and even a couple runners in the 5k) were lapped, some multiple times. It seems wholly reasonable that these runners should be removed from the track as they are lapped.

Off the top of my head, having lapped runners on the track:

1. Makes for slower races and congestion and potential falls and "game changing" collisions

2. Is confusing and distracting for viewers (live and TV)

3. Is potentially dangerous for those doing the lapping and those being lapped (collisions, getting spiked, etc)

4. Looks shoddy. These are championship races not participation activities.

Some collegiate conferences already use a dq procedures for lapped runners. I feel that we should employ one here as well.

8 years ago 06/28/2015 3:41pm EDT

re: Goucher Needles

What if one runner bolted, lapped everyone, passed out, got up, and walk their way to victory?

8 years ago 06/28/2015 3:43pm EDT

re: Goucher Needles

You would have only had 6 (and 2 seconds away from 5) finishers in the Women's 10k. No 5k runners were lapped in the Senior races.

8 years ago 06/28/2015 7:55pm EDT

re: NOPE....

For godsake, at the very least why don't lapped runners move out into lane 3 and stay there? These days they cluelessly plod along in lane 1 and impede the leaders. 30 years this never happened, in fact runners were instructed at the start to move out if lapped. Why and when did this change?

8 years ago 06/28/2015 8:51pm EDT

re: Lapped Runner

Any runner who gets lapped while running in lane one should be banned from the sport for a minimum of a year.

8 years ago 06/28/2015 9:22pm EDT

re: What iff?

What iff? wrote:
What if one runner bolted, lapped everyone, passed out, got up, and walk their way to victory?

This would be a pretty interesting to see play out. Maybe a miler in a 10k? If a guy ran a 3:48, that would lap anyone who was going slower than 31:40 pace. I'm guessing if one guy got 200-300m ahead of a pack going that slow, they'd notice and drop a 72 or something.

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Lobby the USATF: Pull lapped runners at national championships.

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