The NCAA has had the WORST implementation of this rule. Why are so many people getting DQ'd after the fact? The point is to check their shoes BEFORE the race.
This is like letting a baseball team use an illegal bat for all 9 innings then disqualifying them after they won 20 to nothing.
Most college track meets, especially at the D2 level, are staffed by volunteers or people who are not particularly up do date with the World Athletics rules. There are spike checks at most indoor meets, but they are generally just checking if you have ridiculous 1 inch cross county mud spikes, not measuring mm of stack height.
As such, the "enforcement" of this rule is often done by rival coaches who, for obvious reasons, wait until the race is over to report it. I think this is a litte scummy personally, but I suppose it is the athletes responsibility to wear legal footware.
The PSU program and Strader has a history of "accidently" shoving and bunching athletes who happen to be the favorites in these events.
2021 national DMR this happened to the mssu kid,
2022 indoor mile Christian noble.
MIAA 2022 indoor mile Mo west kid (video was featured on Flo track).
2023 indoor mile MIAA Wes ferguson
its a rough sport
I was there when the Pitt kid (Connar Southard) pushed the Mo West kid (Riley Gorham), it was so blatant that it was kind of funny. Gorham flipped a table after getting up which added to the comedy. Pitt love to play the villain in the MIAA and nationally and hey if you're winning a lot, more power to ya. Someone has to play the villain to keep it interesting!
The PSU program and Strader has a history of "accidently" shoving and bunching athletes who happen to be the favorites in these events.
2021 national DMR this happened to the mssu kid,
2022 indoor mile Christian noble.
MIAA 2022 indoor mile Mo west kid (video was featured on Flo track).
2023 indoor mile MIAA Wes ferguson
its a rough sport
I try to just keep to myself as much as possible nowadays, but just want to come on here to defend my guys where needed. I will tell you exactly what happened in every single one of these races.
2021 National DMR - Strader is on Riddle's outside shoulder at the beginning of the finishing stretch. Strader in lane 2. Riddle starts veering to the right. Don't think they even make contact even with as close as they are to each other. Riddle stumbles a little bit because they are just racing hard. Neither guy did anything malicious towards each other in that race. There were protests filed against us for tripping and probably for the baton flying out of Mason's hand too because he spread his arms in joy/shock as he was finishing and Caleb Futter was closing like a freight train and ran into Mason's hand right at the finish line. It took the officials 45-60 minutes to sort out and make a decision.
2022 MIAA Indoor Mile - We take full ownership of this one, but Strader did nothing dirty in the race. There was a lot of history before that race of several races in the past getting tangled up with Riley Gorham. It was happening again in the first half of the MIAA race. While racing, Mason was trying to get an official's attention and pointing at Gorham. His intent was just that he wanted the officials to keep an eye on Gorham. Terrible timing because not long after that is when Southard let his emotions get the best of him and blatantly shoved Gorham off the track. I did not have a view of the shove when it happened. It happened behind the weight throw area on the south end of the track and I was over by the 200m start line. I wasn't totally sure of everything that happened and I made the decision to defend Connar as he is like family to me. We got him reinstated on a technicality and he shouldn't have been reinstated. Connar knew he messed up and I knew I messed up. Sports are intense and we are competitive and my judgement was clouded during that ordeal. That one moment doesn't define Connar as a person because he is a great guy, just as I hope that one moment doesn't define me as a person/coach. I would absolutely do things differently if I could go back and do it again, but that's not possible so I've got to live with it.
2022 D2 National Mile - There was nothing dirty or DQ worthy in this race, in my opinion. I believe Noble got DQ'ed for when he somewhat tried to force his way out of being boxed when they were coming up on 2 laps to go. I don't think it was a big deal and he absolutely shouldn't have been DQ'ed. Officials were trigger-happy on the DQs that meet. Ethan Lang from Fort Hays also got DQ'ed from the 800 final on what I thought was a terrible call. Looked like to me someone ran up on him from behind and tripped him up a little bit and it probably appeared to the officials that Lang shoved the guy in front of him. Anyways, there was nothing dirty in that mile final, nor the 800 final. There was some interview with Noble at some point and he just mentioned Mason as a name when he was talking about the DQ but Mason had nothing to do with it.
2023 MIAA Indoor Mile - We had Diego Contreras and Braden Zaner in that race. 200m to go on the backstretch, Wes Ferguson was in front on the rail with Stuckey even with him on his right. Riley Simpson was behind Wes and Diego was behind Stuckey. Wes went down shortly into the final turn and my understanding is that him and Stuckey got tangled up. Diego and Braden had nothing to do with that fall.
2025 NCAA National Mile Prelim - Right before the final turn, Hartman made a questionable move to get through Mohamad on the inside and Sprecker on the outside. Mason was in front controlling race and trying to keep Sprecker on his hip so they could both get in the top 3. Mason peeks over his shoulder near the end of the turn to see who's around. Slightly loses his balance when he looks forward again and his arm goes up to catch his balance and it doesn't look very good on video. But I'm not sure he even made contact with Hartman on that and if so, he grazed him. A couple protests were filed both for Hartman and Mohamad to be advanced to the final and the officials chose to advance Hartman but not Mohamad. Officials determined that Hartman got tripped up by Mohamad from behind. I was just there standing by at the protest table in case I needed to defend my guys at all and attempt to appeal anything but didn't need to do anything. I do not believe there was anything intentional from any of those top 5 guys in that race that were just battling for their qualifiers. It's just tough racing with a lot of determined guys and unfortunate stuff happens sometimes.
I'm not going to act like we are angels or anything, we get intense and want to win and we aren't perfect. I will take ownership if I truly feel like we did something wrong in a race, but when in doubt, my default is going to be to defend my guys (and then sometimes in hindsight, I found out that wasn't the right thing to do).
New balance LDX prototypes, had to reduce the stack height from the last version to make them legal. Search the world athletics shoe checker for “developmental shoe 6x.” Legal until December. To answer another poster, no, a shoe doesn’t have to available to the general public anymore. They are allowed a “developmental” period of one year but can’t be worn at WA championships or Olympic Games during that period. Also, the 5th place Adams State athlete was wearing the available to the public MDX v3.
Some people’s inability to do research is staggering.
Hot take: they should be disqualified simply for racing in New Balance in 2025 lol.
New balance LDX prototypes, had to reduce the stack height from the last version to make them legal. Search the world athletics shoe checker for “developmental shoe 6x.” Legal until December. To answer another poster, no, a shoe doesn’t have to available to the general public anymore. They are allowed a “developmental” period of one year but can’t be worn at WA championships or Olympic Games during that period. Also, the 5th place Adams State athlete was wearing the available to the public MDX v3.
Some people’s inability to do research is staggering.
Hot take: they should be disqualified simply for racing in New Balance in 2025 lol.
Definitely a hot take. Didn’t seem to bother the Adams guys finishing 1-4-5 in the race where shoes matter the most. Dragonflies are just as good if not better obviously.
Western gets no love here. It was only a decade or 2 ago when Adams and Western were battling it out for NCAAs every year and Mines was just hanging out behind them.
A decade is a long time in this sport. Much less 2.
They get no love because TODAY, they suck. Simple as.
Because they said best ever. That means all time with Western having 8 D2 wins. Mines only has 4(Adams has 13).
I’m not sure if you’re trolling or being serious? How about we take action for what actually happened for Pitt State, the fact is this is not a new story for them and it shows their true colors and what they stand for… which isn’t good for the sport but carry on!
I’m not sure if you’re trolling or being serious? How about we take action for what actually happened for Pitt State, the fact is this is not a new story for them and it shows their true colors and what they stand for… which isn’t good for the sport but carry on!
Pitt state guys are chill. They’re competitive. Their racing behavior ain’t nothing different from what we see at every conference/ national level meet.
NAU is super respected but a good amount of the big sky despises them for their aggressive conference tactics. V- formation’s, B/C guys will shove any potential threat, straight up flagrant shoves. Even though they usually crush the comp, they do it because it’s practice for them for nationals/regionals, it’s a part of the game, tactical racing.
Everybody who cries “so and so isn't good for the sport” is a beta. Quit whining and get good. You're talking crap anonymously on letsrun. You're not good for the sport. Respect the game, or else you'll get dookied on (like you have been).
The NCAA has had the WORST implementation of this rule. Why are so many people getting DQ'd after the fact? The point is to check their shoes BEFORE the race.
This is like letting a baseball team use an illegal bat for all 9 innings then disqualifying them after they won 20 to nothing.
Most college track meets, especially at the D2 level, are staffed by volunteers or people who are not particularly up do date with the World Athletics rules. There are spike checks at most indoor meets, but they are generally just checking if you have ridiculous 1 inch cross county mud spikes, not measuring mm of stack height.
As such, the "enforcement" of this rule is often done by rival coaches who, for obvious reasons, wait until the race is over to report it. I think this is a litte scummy personally, but I suppose it is the athletes responsibility to wear legal footware.
NB employee here with a former teammate who was at NCAA’s working with the officials- it sounds like there was not a spike check before the race, but Division 2 has reintroduced random drug/shoe testing at nationals and also included mandatory drug and shoe testing for event winners. The NCAA as a whole has adopted the World Athletics shoe compliance portal (mentioned earlier in this thread) pretty strongly and though officials aren’t overly familiar with all the shoes, certain officials are very comfortable using the portal to check spikes.
After the M5k, Romain had mandatory drug testing and also had to get his spikes checked. The officials conducting this were confused because the spike name was not obviously listed on the World Athletics portal (if I had to guess, Romain only knew it as the LDX, while the portal lists it as “Development Shoe 6X,” which is what the officials saw) and the colorway of DS 6X did not match the shoe he wore in the race (not a violation). He was cleared after they found out the shoes matched.
New balance LDX prototypes, had to reduce the stack height from the last version to make them legal. Search the world athletics shoe checker for “developmental shoe 6x.” Legal until December. To answer another poster, no, a shoe doesn’t have to available to the general public anymore. They are allowed a “developmental” period of one year but can’t be worn at WA championships or Olympic Games during that period. Also, the 5th place Adams State athlete was wearing the available to the public MDX v3.
Some people’s inability to do research is staggering.
Hot take: they should be disqualified simply for racing in New Balance in 2025 lol.
New Balance are crap and no one races in them unless they are given to them for free.