Kate Grace clearly impedes Rose but no DQ

No room? The whole lane was open! lol.

The whole lane? Are you high, Snoop? Rose takes zero foot strikes outside of lane 1 in the homestretch, zero. Let alone her whole body being clear of lane 1.

"impedes" is rose's rule, not grace's. rose is the one in front who flailed her arm a little. but i don't think short of throwing the 'bow or deliberately slowing down and almost grabbing someone, that they are going to call impeding. she did have her arms out but she's running in lane 1 and entitled to most of the space. no, impeding, to me, is like a blocking foul in hoops or obstruction in soccer. getting in the way for the sake of getting in the way even if it hurts your own race.

you can't impede from behind. grace did make contact from behind to try and shove past. but rose left a gap. and importantly rose wasn't sent sprawling or hurt in her finish. nor was the contact excessive. no one was thrown aside. rubbin's racin'.

your theory of what impeding means, seems to say it means any contact. because it probably slowed her down a tenth. good luck handing out DQ for any contact in any of the races that lose lanes. you'll DQ half the field in a serious meet. plus, in relation to how you conceptualize this, i think WA sees it as you "toss" people who basically lose their minds and do excessive stuff, and otherwise just police that people who get messed over by contact maybe get to progress. the contact wasn't excessive enough for DQ and there's no need to put rose through because she finished on her feet and progressed. which to me is how the rules play out in practice. ie, not like the nitpicky false start rules where they would toss their own grandmother if for breaking the 1/10 second barrier of block pressure even if there is no visual false start on tape.

soccer buddy of mine and i are side by side in my first XC meet. he's feeling ill during mile 2. he tells me he's gonna bail and "watch this." he waits til we're on a narrow forest path on the course, about to round a tight curve. he comes to a stop and stands there stretching his arms wide like he just got out of bed. path is mostly blocked, pinch point forms, people have to squeeze around him. but he's already gonna DNF and he never runs another meet. i zoom off with now some working room behind me.

that's impeding.

if it's something else it would be a track equivalent of soccer's "dangerous play" rule, where you get so wild someone's gonna get hurt. WA can be technical but a lot of sports rules are common sense. impede is don't slow down and get in someone's way on purpose. i never saw anything like this and didn't read rulebooks til i was done as a college runner. but if there was anything it would be whether some of these increasingly high-wire dives to the line are a little too aggressive. i mean, she ends up in the infield up against some of the A/V stuff.

It it’s “clearly” why is it being debated?

Because a couple of idiotic LR posters outraged by whatever the outrage of the day is want to debate it. It's not because the issue has any merit.

She did not impede, but did step one foot off the track before the finish. What's the ruling on that?

It's kind of like a block/charge call a ref has to make, except, in this instance, it's on the final possession of the game as time expires. Seems like a good no call because both athletes advanced. I know that's not a perfect answer but you better believe Rose files a protest if that happens in the final to decide the 3rd spot. Both athletes can learn from this & move on. Grace clearly had more to give but put herself in a bad position & tried to squeeze through on the inside. Rose is a younger athlete who felt Mu moving on the outside so didn't completely close the door on the inside. Fine with it. Fun race. No real consequences. Go out in the final & prove who the better athlete is.

Amen.

Few notes on it:

- It should be top 3 automatic for semi, so Grace shouldn't have had to even go crazy to make it, being well clear of 4th place. That should've been an auto spot, and it's crazy to me Schoffield gets in as she was an uncompetitive 5th in this heat, just fortunate it was fast. Makes me feel bad for Sammy Watson.

-Anyone thinking Rose did anything wrong seems off-the-mark to me. She flails her arms naturally and is running a 57.7-61.x race. So she's just trying to get to the finish. She was not trying to impede Grace or initiate contact.

-Grace just didn't have enough room to make a pass without some contact. Rose did NOT leave much room open, which seems to me something people are blaming her for weirdly. There was not enough room to make a tidy pass, which is smart running by Rose to not drift into lane 2. Maybe today she goes just a bit tighter to make an inside pass unthinkable, but I think she took a good line.

-Grace essentially called the bluff that the contact would not be big enough for Rose/USATF to DQ her. They did not, which was the right move given both athletes got in and Grace got the worst of it.

Edit

Top 3 for a semi doesn't make sense when there are 9 lanes and 3 semis - because I think they want one lane open just in case something happens in one of the semis and they want to advance a runner.

I also like the idea of a couple qualifiers on time. Wasn't it this set of 800s where two semis were "slow" and one was "fast"? One would think that time qualifying would help keep the pace honest, especially in the last semi where the competitors know exactly what it takes to make the final: Top 2 or 3rd/4th under X:XX time.

Regardless of my view of this situation, perhaps there shouldn't be any infield equipment quite so close to the track unless absolutely necessary. This could have been a much worse outcome! And we see lunges at the line often enough that something bad can eventually happen.

By rule all finals will have all lanes full absent a last minute withdrawal of a qualifier.

This is hilarious you bring up race. Reed Brown of Oregon did the same thing to A BYU runner at NCAA’s in the semifinal in 2022 and Brown got DQ’d. Likely negatively affected a chance for him to get a contract. Both athletes were white.

How brainwashed off of money making media do you have to be?

Clearly no foul here. No one was impeded. Rose hits Grace but she did not do anything unnatural in swinging her arm.

There was room. Rose had to shut one door or another and she chose neither.

Exactly. Kate Grace forced her way, squeezed her way or whatever description you wan to use. She came barreling through because she was desperate. Both runners moved on but I don't really like this dirty play and thus hope that Kate Grace does not run well tonight. Besides, she's had her Olympic chance/ experience. Go home and take care of your baby. And set a better example than you fid last night

Not true. Her torso was already over the finish line when her foot stepped on the infield.