NCAA Division II West Regionals San Diego, CA

I was standing right there, where the wrong turn took place. I saw the bike approaching and noticed that the flagging was still across the path where the runners were to take a sharp 90 degree turn. It was happening so fast, I could not believe my eyes. Shame on you UC San Diego for trying to blame this first on the fans and then on the runners themselves. This is a very confusing course, no matter what the other 2 (probably San Diego folks who know the course) people say. If the staff would have just moved the 4' flagging across the path and forced the right hand turn, everything would have been fine, but instead, when the biker knew where to turn the official said, no go straight, the flagging was IN THE WAY of the turn. After it happened, everyone seemed to just stand there in shock, not knowing what to do. So about 60 runners went by, then there was a "break" in the runners, and someone moved the flagging and all of the slowest runners went the correct way. By then the faster runners were told to turn around. It was the most confusing mess I have ever seen. Runners looked like they were swimming upstream against the current. Like a giant running mosh pit. If you look at the videos you can see how dense the forest is, and runners were desperate and trying to jump through those bushes and trees to make their way back to the front. The top 2 runners stated that when they turned them around, they were in dead last in the race. It was absolute kaos. When the slowest runners were told to go the correct way, I said, hey well that is not fair because now they are in the lead. And a San Diego guy told me, too bad, the runners are suppose to know the course, it is their fault (once again someone else's fault besides San Diego's). Many fans had spent a lot of money to make the trip to cheer on their favorite runner. And then for San Diego to say "it is a NCAA rule that no one is now allowed to go into the forest to cheer on the runners", what? Again, blaming it on the fans. After all of this, you would think that San Diego would have made some type of apology to the runners for putting them through all of this. But not one word at the awards ceremony. It was like it never even happened, it was all just a bad dream.

nope, tori tyler is not related to scotty bauhs.

just curious? wrote:

After seeing both races on Sunday I was wondering if the top young lady from chico was related to scotty bauhs by any chance? I thought both of them looked a lot alike and I briefly talked to the girl during the guys race. I was surprised that her personality was so similar to scott's in away. Quite yet knew her stuff.

The 2004 USATF District championship meet was held at UCSD. The results were so messed up the athletes had to get together after the race to try to figure out who beat whom and help match them to the times. Prize money checks were originally made out to the wrong people, nobody is certain that the results ever got totally correct.

The 2005 Southern California Community College Championships were held at UCSD. The starting line had a bend at the end, totally squeezing out teams. Many athletes went down, including the favorite in the race. The race went 500 meters before being called back. At the re-start the favorite stayed on his feet, but was so far back that he never regained the lead pack and finished about 5th.

The 2006 Triton Invitational is already documented here with the exact same problem, guys were running all over the place, different courses, times, etc. It was a joke.

Now this same problem at the NCAA regional.

Anyone that attends another race at UCSD is being foolish.

UCSD should be banned from holding a championship X-Country race for at least 10 years. From the sounds of this circus race it looks like this school could give Ringling Brothers a run for their money. At the least they should of apologized and taken ownership for screwing up a national qualifying race. Instead they blamed it on the fans and runners. That is purely pathetic.

NOT RUPP CERTIFIED

Investigate what went wrong before throwing hand grenades. It could be that UCSD let the local USATF crew run the race, or that a meet director who has given countless hours to the sport, messed up and as is responsible. Find out who the race director and crew was. If you ban UCSD the same people may still be involved at Foot Locker, San Diego St, San Marcos, Pt Loma, etc. The same USATF crews work meets in the same given areas usually at least where I live. Also don't be so bitter. These guys are all volunteers. They only people getting paid are the college coaches on staff, paramedics, timing crew, authentic media (f/t salaried with benefits), everyone else including the biker is a volunteer. Of course I agree that the NCAA, your school's Athletic Department, and your coaches should do an offical post-mortem analysis, find out EXACTLY what the problem was, and rectify the situation by recommending new guidlines. The findings should be published, with the names of those in charge, running, ushering, biking, etc. and made public.

stater of the obvious wrote:

NOT RUPP CERTIFIED

POD

"NOT RUPP CERTIFIED"

POD.

Funny, I've run a few XC meets this year and it seems coaches forget about the whole idea of keeping it simple. For instance, we race at a lake that has a trail around it, it is 2.5 miles!!! Go around it 2x's for gods sake. Instead of just running the thing 2x's, they have to do all these adjustments..run up to that tree, go around it, run around the softball field twice and then do a half loop and double back. People get lost, people get confused, etc, etc...it's sometimes funny to hear coaches/race directors explain their courses:)

simple wrote:

Look, if the men can't memorize a course this simple, it's their own fault.

http://www.ucsdtritons.com/pics11/800/ZJ/ZJJXQNBYLSMALUQ.20081002195309.jpg?DB_OEM_ID=5800

I just TRIED to read that map. It is the most confusing thing I've ever seen. It's got the ABCD going for it, but then it is all split differently every mile. My favorite is the last 1.2: E-F-N-O-H-I-J-K-L-P-Q. No wonder this thing got all screwed up, none of the staff could probably even understand the course map. I think the person who came up with the course and whoever approved it are in big part the people blame.

You are spot on. I was at that very same crossroad of the course. The only people at fault are the officials for not having a proper person at that intersection and the bike rider for missing the turn. UCSD needs to admit their error.

This was my fourth time running on the UCSD course (2nd for the 10k and the first 10k was this year at the preview). I knew the course and I knew we were going the wrong way when we went past the turn. San Diego did a great job at marking the course with chalk all the way through and wooden posts with arrows in sequential order of which way you were suppose to turn. When I approached the turn and saw no one turning right, I started yelling to turn right but it was hard because of being bunched up with other runners running straight. I went about 50 meters past and saw the front pack turn and head back straight at me and I turned around. Of course there were a lot of choice words for the moment. Then we got back on track and the leaders made their way to the front and everything was flowing again. I got about a 6k in and everyone just stopped running. It was unusual to most. It was only unusual to most to see this happen because in 2006 at the CCAA preview meet held at UCSD on the same course (only an 8k), there was a fork in the trail and one of my teammates and a UCSD runner were approaching it and didnt know which way to go because the course was not marked well at all. No chalk or flags or spotter or nothing. They went the wrong way leading about 50 runners astray. Then we made that turn (where at regionals everyone missed) and headed out. We knew we werent suppose to be heading out there again but the spectators told us to. We went and then turned around and when we got back to that intersection, we crashed with the leaders. They wound up not scoring the meet.

To have this happen at a regional championship meet is remarkable. If they were going to stop the race, they should have done it after the incident occurred, not after we ran over half the race. I was capable of running 32s, 33s on that course. I and many other runners had a horrible race when we had to restart. There's nothing that can be done about it. Teams finished where they were most likely going to finish. It sucks for those seniors whose last race of their collegiate xc career was shattered by an event like this. Just gotta shrug it off and get ready for track season.

don't worry, it will never be at ucsd again, the coaches vote on it and unless they are all nuts, it will never be there again.

they should have stopped the race immediately and actually a few coaches were yelling for it to stop and people just looked at each other dumbfounded.

There were 3 FATAL ERRORS here:

1. the missed turn was horrible, and definately someone from UCSD's fault.

2. if everyone ran the same course, however messed up that would have been fine BUT around 60-70th place they were turned instead of following the leaders

3. The did not stop the meet immediately - they made them run an additional 1.5 miles so that the front guys had run over 6k

and yes, everyone had the same conditions - but this may really hurt the teams going to nationals - esp. Alaska Anchorage whose 5th runner went down with heat exhaustion or something. then, the amount of emotional exhaustion can not be tabulated. and that is not being a pansy or anything, it is just fact that its hard to come back from something like this and be excited - it will take good coaching and amazing resiliency

Ten meter's version is pretty much right on with a few missing details. I was right on the corner. A few of us fans knew the runners needed to make a right turn, and set ourselves to allow the runners to make the turn. About 50 seconds before the runners arrived, a woman in a Chico State polo shirt arrived and told us to get out of the way because the runners were going to go straight through. We told her we were fairly sure the runners were going to the right, as they had done at the Triton Invitational. We argued for awhile, but gave in as someone yelled the bike was coming. As the runners came by it was obvious the UCSD runners knew they should be turning as two of their runners started to the right but turned back to join the wrong way race. At that point, as discussed above, chaos began.

I feel bad because I should have pushed my point harder, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure.

All this said ,the MAIN problem was there was no race official at the most important, least intuitively obvious corner. I'm sure somebody was assigned there, but screwed up and didn't show. All the other corners had numerous yellow shirted officials moving ribbons. I feel like the UCSD race officials had it setup correctly, but a particular corner official(s), just made a really bad mistake.

You should start doing some homework instead of looking at this forum. After all, you have a test tomorrow!

-Ult

hmm.... stop being dumb and saying they should have ran a shorter race... I'm nearly 100% sure that the NCAA rule book required a 10K course so that wasn't even an option. Geeze, use your brain a little bit.

not so easy wrote:

It isn't so easy to go the right way when the correct route is COMPLETELY BLOCKED by fans and the biker goes the wrong way. The home team website is full of crap when they said that the runners ran off course.

Problems:

1) Lead bike went wrong way

2) Spectators completely blocking correct way

3) Course monitors not moving the fans and making sure people went the right way

I've noticed problems with fans before as well. 2 or 3 years back at D III XC Nationals at Ohio Wesleyan, fans started crossing the course after 4/5ths of the girls had run by. Problem was there were still more girls coming and no one bothered to look. These girls in the back had to stop and go around these people during the race! Needless to say, I was in shock.

nowayjose wrote:

There were 3 FATAL ERRORS here:

Wait- someone died?! (If I believed in emotions, this is an occasion when I would use the "smile with a wink" one.)

On a more technical note, how exactly was the race stopped? I'm just curious how they went about this.

Honestly, I don't think the UCSD course should be used as a championship course - and this is coming from someone who competed and trained on it.

1 - It's way too confusing. If not even the lead biker can get it down with conviction (and this is not the first time, as they have said), then, no good.

2 - It's too narrow in spots. There are some seriously choked off portions.

3 - Not Rupp certified. Tons of roots, rocks, and potholes.

4. Not spectator friendly. Either people get lost trying to find the runners in the forest, or jam up the running lanes (again, narrow course), or stay outside and only get to see the runners when they start and finish which is BORING during a 10k.

It is a pretty beastly course, but not meant for championships.