count wrote:
they counted for him, was anyone else that close??? pretty sure if so they would be in as well.
Nope. USATF still does not allow chip times, so the Chicago Marathon had to change the gun times in the official results.
count wrote:
they counted for him, was anyone else that close??? pretty sure if so they would be in as well.
Nope. USATF still does not allow chip times, so the Chicago Marathon had to change the gun times in the official results.
who is miles and miles??
yeah, i wasted away a good amount of time friday afternoon at work, but someone on the other thread posted that rosario's gun time was 2:21:59 first. then i noticed that sell's gun/chip times were two seconds faster, too. anyways, i think something is fishy, and i don't think i'm crazy. i don't have a link to rosario's picture, but here are the links to two pictures of sell (bib 24) at the finish from marathonfoto (with the clock showing 2:20:01):
that second link url doesn't seem to work -- this should be the correct link.
so can rosario and sell live with themsleves and actually run the race??? i mean seriously, knowing that they needed this "help" to do it?
Maybe I'm looking at these pictures wrong, but doesn't it look like he is actually past the finish line a little bit (maybe 1-2 seconds)?
one more thing to add, then i'm done... it is just like people who take money at a race because the college runner who waxes them doesn't accept it. i would NOT take money, i'd just be like, let the next guy...down the line. cause i don't deserve it. if you don't run 2:22, you DO NOT BELONG THERE. that hanson guy is a dick to get his guys in. it's only cause that will make him more popular if he has more peopleat the trials. he's self serving.
The USATF lets those who are very close to the standard to appeal and get in the race. That is what Rosario should do... There are lots of marathons that don't use chip timing and therefore using chip times wouldn't be fair to others who didn't have that opportunity. The race starts when the gun goes off, period.
I agree with what you say (they should be there) but doing this through subterfuge and not through the appeal process is just wrong. There's a reason the rules are in place and there's a reason the appeal process is in place.
The problem with letting people in who are just a few seconds over the standard is that it sets a potentially problematic precedent. If it were up to me everyone within a couple of seconds of 2:22 would get to run.
But what happens if someone says (for example): well, you let Miles and Miles run and he was 3 seconds off the standard; I'm 3 seconds off his time; why not let me in too? Somewhere you have to draw the line, and you might as well draw it where it started.
One possible thought: charge $250 (or so) for every second over the standard for entry into the trials and use the money to help fund the drug testing people. It's steep enough that you're unlikely to get rich jokers in there, yet doable enough that if you're only a couple of seconds over, if it is important to you, you can go. I'd be happy to contribute $25 to Miles and Miles to help him go. And if someone like P.Diddy decides he wants to make a fool of himself, we could fund drug testing for the next couple of years :-)
what happens in the appeal process is that those guys will say "i was in the second row so it took me two seconds to get to the line" or some other reason and they'll let him in. saying i was six seconds of the standard is a lot harder to justify.
Miles and Miles is a great guy but he never covered 26.2 miles in under 2:22. According to even the harshest critics Ben Rosario has (chip time has always been under). The only argument should be whether or not we should allow a outdated rule to interfere with updated technology. We all agree that he covered the distance under the standard. It seems pretty nit picky that anyone would want him out. Please stop comparing examples of people that have zero sound documentation that they covered the appropriate distance in the appropriate time.
To the people who think gun time is the way to go, you are in line with the current rule.
To the people who think chip time should count, please direct your rule-change proposals to the USATF.
If we are to enter into a theoretical debate between chip and gun times, then we can do this in hopes of coming to an agreement for the future.
However, there was a rule in place before, during, and at present. The rule states that a runner's official time will be based upon the time taken from the sound of the gun, to the moment they cross the line.
Surely those of you clamboring for chip times to count were submitting proposals to the rules committee before the race, right?
And if the USATF adopted chip times as the standard by which to ratify national records and qualifications, you would be quite perplexed as to why someone would come on this board and maintain that a discrepancy between chip and gun times means that the USATF should acknowledge gun times, NOT chip times.
You would wonder to yourself, how could they feel this way? Don't they know what the rule is? It was in place before and during the race. Why would they try to change the rules now and have it apply to a past race.
And I am quite confident that the chip timers will next promote the greater accuracy in having milers wear pedometers, so that they can stop running when they've completed 1500m, whether or not they cross the finish line.
There is a rule in place already. And it's not like they even changed the rule and retro-actively applied it to two runners. The rule is still in place.
When speaking of standards, people draw the line somewhere. When Chicago fudges the results after the experiment has been conducted, it's just bad science.
here's as of last wed.
I believe that you are right. There would be no reason for a rule change because it would NOW effect no one. There are zero people (male or female) that have covered 26.2 mile in under the qualifying time by chip that have not covered it by gun. It appeared that 2 individual athletes may have been tripped up by the archaeic rule but it is now not the case. Now every individual that covered the 26.2 miles in the allotted time (gun or chip) will have an opportunity to run the trials. Seems pretty clean to me.
Couple thoughts:
Finish photos showing the runner and the overhead clock almost invariably show times that are 2-3 sec faster than the runner's actual time. They're even less "valid" than ChampionChip data.
I also find the concept of tampering to (a) save Brian a few hundred bucks, and (b) let Ben squeak under a benchmark, farfetched.
As for (a), LaSalle Bank already pledged to pay Brian a sack of bucks for beating the B standard. Risk/reward profile -- risk of fraud scandal for rigging the outcome of a sporting event, with only a few hundred $$ at stake -- is one-sided (on the wrong side).
As for (b), it's even more one-sided. The Pink Man would have to be deranged to compromise his race's rectitude to do a favor for one guy.
It is a lot more plausible that there were legit operational adjustments to finish times. Ever have a computer freeze up on you or "hiccup"? That happening with the ChampionChip scoring is more plausible than a sub-rosa conspiracy to "fix" the results of two guys who lost the race by 1.5-2 miles.
Think through this with me....in the photos linked above, there are obviously two sets of mats. The first would be the actual finish line, the second mat serving as a backup. The photo shows a (running) time of 2:20:01 while the athlete is clearly beyond the finish line as defined in the USATF 2003 Competition Rules; "The finish line shall be a line drawn across the track or course surface from finish post to finish post". Was this particular athlete's transponder stopped upon crossing the front edge of the front most mat as it should have been? If so then his time would by law of physics be <2:20:01 as he has moved through time and space when this photo was taken. Was his transponder stopped upon crossing the second (backup) mat? If this be the case then I could see a legitimate adjustment being made to correct for when the athlete crossed the true and actual finish line as defined above. This is an analytical position based on empirical evidence. This applies only to this athlete in this particular photo.
haven't there been guys who missed the 1500 standard on the track by a few hundreths who have appealed and made it in to usatf?
when you're talking a few hundreths in a distance race on the track or a second in the marathon, i think those guys should get in. three seconds in the thon is pushing it, as is half a second on the track.
why not make an allowance for the one guy who came agaonizing close but just missed, especially if the field isn't too large? one hardship case per event. i see nothing wrong with that.
to the "you run the time or suck it" crew, i hope from now on for the rest of your lives you're held to the strictest "letter of the law" standard for everything you do. maybe you'll realize how much leeway you actually get everyday.
Mr. McVeigh:
If it "hiccupped" for Brian and Ben, did it "hiccup" for the each of the 30,000 folks who finished behind them? Did it "hiccup" for ANY of the 30,000 folks who finished behind them? Do you think it's at all odd that the "hiccups" occurred when it came down to two guys on the edge of two critical threshholds? I do.
I agree that it wouldn't seem to be worth the aggravation for Chicago organizers to fudge the results. I'm not necessarily saying that a "fix" was in. What I would find troubling, though, is if Rosario and Sell got the benefit of a few seconds because they are affiliated with an established running team that (one would think) has a little more access to race directors, USATF officials, etc. I'm not saying anything illegitimate occurred. What I am saying is that there are a handful of guys who are within 2 to 6 seconds of a qualifying mark whom I suspect DON'T have the access that the Hansons may have (Miles and Miles, for one). I don't think that this lack of access should make the difference. But I think it has.
The finish clock very rarely is cooordinated exactly with the timing devise that is used to record accurate finishes. My time was about 3 seconds slower in my pictue than what I had on my watch. I started my watch on the gun. It doesn't matter a whole bunch for a 3:26 marathoner but it would have for these guys. Perhaps these were the only guys that it effected. Who knows?