rojo wrote:
http://www.flotrack.org/article/42899-becky-wade-s-trials-qualifier-denied-by-usatfIt amazes me how USATF officials are consistently brain dead on a public relations front.
Coming off of the marathon Trials, Becky Wade ran a steeple at the nationally televised Atlanta meet. She ran 9:52 - under the 9:53 USATF auto time.
USATF now tells her the time doesn't count as there was no rail. There were only cones on a turn (which a USATF official told meet management was ok for last year's meet). So now she's flying out to Portland to get a time.
I'm all for standards being enforced for records and what not but this is just stupid.
1) There aren't even 24 people with the auto time. They should just let her in. You're talking about it being worth fractions of a second.
2) The fault wasn't hers, it was the meet management. Just tell the meet management, "In the future, the times won't be allowed. Let this be a warning."
I understand this is a slippery slope and they are worried that if they let it slide in this case, someone will sue in another case so then give her a penalty. It looks like a rail is worth a few feet per lap so then say we'll add 3 seconds to your time.
We have an update on the story.
1) Weldon spoke to David Katz. He never ever told Paul Doyle that it would be ok to run a meet without a rail.
Katz told Weldon that he spoke to Doyle after the article was published and that Doyle says he never told Flotrack that Katz told him it would be ok to run the meet with cones. Katz said Doyle told him that he told flotrack something along the lines of "You need to talk to David Katz" about how it all works.
Note: Earlier we said the Flotrack story was "inaccurately written". That is incorrect. The story does not accurately reflect what David said happened. We have no idea what Doyle actually told Flotrack so we definitely shouldn't say it's inaccurately written, but it's inaccurate to the facts according to David.
2) It's clear to me that the Doyle (not Wade) screwd up. If you are running a meet on national tv, you get a rail. As an athlete, when invited to compete in a nationally televised meet, it's not on you to ask, 'Will there be a rail?' So Doyle screwed up but USATF could easily make this whole by just saying, 'We're going to make an exception as we want to reward you for getting a meet on natinal tv or we're going to penalize you .5 seconds per lap.'