RE: Am I The Only One Outraged By Dayron Robles Actions?

It is amazing to think that a professional hurdler, whose job it is to run over hurdles as fast as he can, who trains everyday to do just this for 5+ years, does not have coordination to adjust his position at full speed. Think about it. These guys are professional technicians of their event and controlling their bodies at high speed is their job. And they happen to be the best in the world at this "job".

Liu and Robles are not the best because they are the fastest. Of course, they are fast and explosive. But, how many male high hurdlers do you know that compete in flat races on the world stage? What makes them great is that they have terrific balance and coordination (and they study their event obsessively).

Liu personifies this. And Robles' consistency in the event suggests that he ain't bad either.

Did Robles intentionally impede Liu? Maybe. Could he intentionally impede Liu at top speed? Absolutely.

People... Robles obviously impeded Liu's progress and momentum. Intentional or not, he should have been DQ'd.

Deal with it.

Robles DQ is correct but the race should be rerun without him. Richardson shouldn't get the Gold in this way.

I have done exactly that in a 60m indoor race, without getting caught. Full speed, less hurdles, and the other guy was a jerk as well...this is excluding breaking a hurdle into another hurdler for also, being a jerk like me...in college vs DI experience.

It's not to say that it's impossible, but it is indeed extremely difficult to do something else in a competition than you've ever done before. If DR intentionally did what so many suggest than he should have trained for it, or had the intention before and at the start to hit LX. What a ridiculous idea that would be.

Could anyone indicate that DR did this earlier on in other competitions? I bet no one!

It's so obvious to see that hitting LX's arm on the 9th hurdle disturbed DR in such a way that he lost balance and therefor momentum. As I quoted earlier on this board; LX's arm was in DR's lane, so you can't blame DR hitting it!

Because of this action it went clearly wrong at the 10th hurdle.

The situation there was more blatant than on the 9th, but again basically caused by LX himself.

Summarized, the endresult should have stayed intact!

That bullshit didn't even make sense as a paragraph.

Stick to tempo runs over ten miles.

He hit him, grabbed him, and ran out of his lane. Dragging the trail leg around his hurdle as he did on the 10th is enough to get you DQ'd. He did it all.

DQ. No brainer.

The slo-mo videos of the race certainly make it look like Robles was trying to grab Lui's hand 3 times and caught it twice. His arm motion certainly looks like an intent to grab and I came to this board as outraged as anyone. Then I saw this site and video:

http://hurdler49.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/dayron-robles-in-slo-mo/

This shows that the Robles arm motion is his normal form. The author comments (in 2010):

| What I don’t like about Robles’ form is his flailing trail arm.

So now intent is not so obvious to me. It's possible Robles intentionally veered into Liu's lane. Also note that in the picture everyone keeps showing:

http://a57.foxnews.com/static/managed/img/Sports/396/223/robles640.jpg

that David Oliver (on the right) has his arm clearly in Robles' lane. Since it didn't cause obstruction it's not an issue.

After going though this, I think:

1. Robles clearly deserved to be disqualified under any reasonable interpretation of the obstruction rule.

2. While intent may look obvious in the slo motion video, this appears to be Robles' normal form.

3. I would respect Robles (much) more if he expressed his disappointment differently, i.e. without crying victim and with more respect for his competitors.