Iowa State Meet: Runner gets shoved and falls badly in 800, then wins 1600 in 4:07 and is granted solo 800 rerun (video)

I feel like this happens a lot in high school 800s because the fields are WAY TOO BIG! It's always absolute chaos when you squish like 12-15 kids into one 800 heat.

Jackson Heidesch should have been DQ'd, not the wronged Ammon Smith. Jackson Heidesch did not cut in on poor Ammon. Jackson Heidesch was never AHEAD poor Ammon to cut in.

Let me clue you in because you obviously don't get it - Jackson Heidesch literally moved sideways - pushing poor Ammon completely off the track. I believe poor Ammon also wrestles in high school. The fact that you don't give poor Ammon kudos for pushing back astounds me.

The fact that Iowa State high school officials would allow this dirty bird a re-run and DQ the wronged Ammon Smith shows me what snowflakes school officialdom has become.

Ask yourself this - who is more deserving of a guest spot on the David Letterman Show - Alan Webb or Ammon Smith.

Everyone agrees the kid who fell down should have been DQ'd. I think it should end there. The retaliation was not justified if it was a normal race, but it was no longer a fair race at that point, that kid should never have been put in that position. So whatever his reaction was, you can't blame him for doing that in the heat of the moment. He didn't come into this race looking to throw punches, it was the other guy who came to do the skulduggery.

Agree with other posters that both should be DQ'd. Man bun came flailing around the turn and tossed an elbow for no good reason. This could have easily resulted in fall or tripped up runners. Red singlet wasn't having it and knocked man bun to the ground. Two wrongs don't make a right here and they both get tossed. Allowing initial elbow asaulter man-bun a rerun is not right. Dude needs to learn to keep his arms in and respect those on the rail.

In all the meets I've seen, I think there are too few DQ's for cutting in. There is only a DQ if someone falls down or goes way off the track, but there are way more instances when a race is ruined by jerks cutting someone else off, causing them to stumble and go off stride. If it is bad enough, it is extremely hard to get back into the race after that.

If you take the outside lane, pay the price instead of cheating to get to the rail. Those are the rules, they need to apply the rules fairly.

Sure I can. Not all reactions are equal in sensibility.

That is unfairly judgmental. You have no clue what it was like to be suddenly thrust into that situation. All bets are off when an offender harms you.

It’s completely fair for me to judge. Further, it’s not like I’ve never been shoved in a race before.

Would choking him out have been an appropriate response? If your answer is “no”, then you agree there is a spectrum of reasonable retaliation and we are just arguing on what the line is. If you’re answer is “yes” then you are a psycho.

The people here that say the punch was not justified need to say what was justified…you can just say what is not ok, end it there, and expect to be taken seriously.

Some reaction is justified, or has TF just become wrestling where you can force somebody off the track and expect the repercussion to be effectively nothing?

If I’m a coach in Iowa and I’ve got the slowest seed in a final and the second fastest, I’ll just tell my slowest guy to tackle the #1 seed so that my #2 wins.
Worst case scenario, my last seed gets a personal time trial and I earn the respect of Letsrun.

Use your shoulders, elbows and spikes to defend your territory like runners have done since the beginning of racing.

agreed. use your spike when he does that or slightly grab the back of his jersey to slow him down. or you can slightly hit his leg (make it look normal though, like you're running all out and your hand is going far down and touches him) to knock him off balance

I did. Top of page 2.

If you want detail. City High should have thrown a hard elbow to the side of the Christian rich Catholic school entitled cheat. Basically a kidney punch but with the elbow or forearm. Otherwise, smack his forearm to throw him off balance. That was a pretty egregious infraction by the guy in black and he should feel utterly ashamed and humiliated for being a jerk in the first place, a snowflake for falling down like that, and a tweety dweeb for running the time trial when we all know he was the cheater. He showed poor character and his coaches are bad people.

All that said, you can't go around smacking someone up the back their head in the middle of the race.

Both should have been DQ'd. Move on.

Or.

I just time trialed a 3:38 on the local bike trail.

Centro, please send me your Gold Medal

Multiple newspaper articles referred to Ammon getting DQed for the rest of the meet. He ran the anchor leg of the 4x400 for City High in the prelims, splitting 49. The anchor for City High split 54 in the finals, and they finished a distant last. I wasn't at the meet so I can't say one way or the other - I was just following the results online.

On a separate note, how did the initial running of the 800 end up? How did Ammon finish? I don't think it would have made a difference in the team score since Dowling got big points in the sprints, but it would have been a lot closer.

A shame it played out how it did, and kind of overshadowed some really strong performances in the meet overall.

I didn't see Ammon in the relay card lineup for the final, but it was definitely him, which surprised me. He was not giving 100% effort, which isn't shocking since he got the baton in last.

He ran 1:57 in the 800, but after he delivered justice to the Dowling kid, he sped up and pulled away from the rest of the field by about 10 meter before burning out on the back stretch. He already ran a 1:55 and 1:54 that weekend, so I think the heat of the moment caused him to lose judgement. I know he works with Joey Woody in the off season. I expect next year he'll break Joey Woody's school record and run 1:52.

Both should have been DQ’d. The shorter guy had position on the inside lane. The taller guy clearly initiated contact and was the aggressor. The shorter guy shouldn’t have pushed him back that hard…but not much else he could do when the other guy was trying to push him off the track when they were even. The fact that the taller guy wasn’t DQ’d and additional punishment was handed out to the shorter guy is nonsense.

Reading a supportive comment by a Trojan to a Little Hawk is a bit strange but makes me proud that such traditional, cross town rivals got each kthers back. Dont f with family! Especially if you are a recruited Dowling athlete that gets to participate on all-star squads.

Whatever, Iowa sucks.

Very nice that Iowa has discovered the internet, but seriously, its Iowa, the rest of the country doesn't care.