WI 1600m female state meet runner refuses DQ, has to get pulled off track

It is amazing that the guy official is even mentioned in this. What exactly is any official supposed to do? Just let her do whatever she wants? Run the race even though she got DQed? What if she ran and won and went to the awards ceremony and wouldn’t get off the podium till she got her medal?

The guy did nothing wrong. If I’m her parent I apologize to everybody. If I’m the coach I apologize to everybody. The athlete should apologize to everybody. You don’t get to make your own rules.

ihohskjskjsjkkjs wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

She wasn't accepting the decision of the officials. You would have let her disrupt the race by rejoining it, which is what she was absolutely determined to do?

She was exercising her 1st Amendment rights of speech to protest her DQ by finishing the race, doing so doesn't entitle anyone to assault her to try and stop her, since she's not in the race according to them, what does it matter?

Freedom of speech doesn't give her the right to run the race. She can protest the decision but a disqualification for a false start takes away the athlete's right to run the race. By her refusing to accept the decision they were entitled to prevent her from re-entering the race, as she tried to do. I saw no excessive force applied. No major competition, like the Olympics, for example, could work if this were otherwise. Athletes could simply ignore the officials or override their decisions, as this athlete attempted to do. If she was able to do that, and get away with it, no other athlete need feel bound by officials' decisions at any future meet. Have a big enough tantrum and you'll get your way. I don't think so.

High school rules 5-7-4. Starting violations which constitute a false start include:

a. Failure to comply with commands

b. Any part of the body in contact with the starting line or over it when the gun is fired

c. Failure to remain motionless after assuming the set position prior to the gun

d. Starting blocks outside your lane

e. Repeated use of disconcerting acts

It is a best practice but not a rule for the Starter to call them up from a standing start if some inadvertently lines up with a toe on the line. In this case, the arch of her foot was on the line and she was clearly trying to jump the gun and lost her balance while the starter was more then likely waiting for everyone to be still. My impression is that her actions were not inadvertent and led to her losing balance. FALSE START. 5-7-4b and 5-7-4c

This entire episode took all of 45 seconds. If you look at the video of the Male D1 runner at NCAA West prelims, it took over 4 minute to sort out. He did not leave the track, he kept warming up and doing strides. He threw his hands up and argued. He did not want to leave either but not one person touched him and he finally came to his senses and left. You mean to tell me they could not give this girl 60 seconds to digest what just happened? This a$$hole had to start grabbing at her and escalating things? If you think this is OK, you are part of the problem. This notion that you get to grab, push and control people just because you don't like their behavior has to stop. He's not the police. What he did was battery, plain and simple.

I can but you can wrote:

atrackandfieldfan wrote:

Does anyone else feel that she was manhandled?

Absolutely! Regardless of her bad behavior, you don't put your hands on anyone, especially a man repeatedly grabbing a teenager like that. Just hold the race until you get the situation under control. If that was my daughter, I would have beat that dude's ass.

... and then knocked some sense into my daughter! :)

On the off chance that you aren’t a 110 lb virgin with no chance of being able to either father a child, or beat someone’s ass, you think that hitting everyone is the way to conduct yourself?

Clearly she was crying. She should have been allowed to run the race and given a medal.

come on now wrote:

DQ someone in the 1600 for a false start is a joke. I like this girls spirit in terms of not giving up even though she clearly needed to exit the track. I'm sure she's embarrassed by her actions, but that's a champion right there through and through.

That's a champion?

She didn't run right?

Someone else won it and they are the champion.

Sounds more like that's a tantrum.

The two of you should go sit in a corner.

I can definitely see why officials would want to keep order. You just can’t start bargaining with an athlete (or coach, or parent) who doesn’t want to accept the decision of officials. There just has to be firmness — the officials are the officials.

I’m sure there would be a better, smoother protocol for handling situations like this (as many have suggested), but it’s hard to imagine anyone had bothered to premeditate how to handle a situation like this!? Nobody saw it coming.

Why the runner snapped, is another matter.

As a full-on grownup, i think it blows when authority figures find a minor flaw and decide to “exercise their authority”. I can remember being let go from a job, and wanting to be like, “no, i will NOT leave — i am good at my job and deserve to stay.” But i know the pointlessness of doing such a thing, and don’t get emotional enough to want to do it anyway.

As for the other runner playing the Judas role, by trying to comfort the DQ’d runner: how did you even think of that?! Should work in law enforcement with a mind like that.

To focus on the rules issue , USATF follows IAAF in having the "accidental" "over-balance" excuse for standing start races.

NCAA does not have this provision and James West's DQ was correct per NCAA rule. NFHS is not exactly the same as NCAA, but it's to the same effect and justifies the result in this case.

The problem with the use of the word "accidental" in the IAAF/USATF rule is that it confuses the issue of intent in a way that should be familiar to anyone who went to law school. No one intends false starts; they are, for essential purposes, always "accidents". And, since the word "accidental" isn't really meaningful as a distinction, any decision under the "over-balance" exception could be justified.

Long time ago, NCAA, AAU and IAAF all had a rule that a runner committing a false start would, on first violation, be penalized by being placed some distance back from the start line. This was before the use of starting blocks.

Bringing back this approach for standing start races would avoid the draconian DQ, while also not giving distance runners a "freebie" for trying to get an advantage on the field..

I don't understand why the one-and-done false start rule was ever introduced for the mid-d/distance events. For the sprints, the rule change made sense because people were intentionally false starting to gain an advantage. Was this ever an issue in distance events?

Instead of implementing one-and-done for all races and then making it a best practice to call the race back and restart without calling the DQ in distance races, why didn't they just make one-and-done the rule for races start out of blocks and keep the old rule for standing start races?

WIStateGif wrote:

here you go

she is starting position#10

here it is slowed down to .2

https://gyazo.com/e6364da913b547d0b57be88f7fd53eae

Here it is normal speed

https://gyazo.com/e88440126fe051e86afb3d43279bea67

sorry I do not know how to format on the site so you will have to click the links,

Thanks for this video.

The ball of her foot was already on the line at "Set" or "On your mark" before they said "go" or fired the gun. They should have been watching the line more closely, and they should have stood them up and started again.

She was robbed. And she should be compensated.

There have been a number of posts on this thread condemning the male for physically restraining the female to enforce the disqualification. If in a situation like this the disqualified competitor refuses to leave the track, to enforce the disqualification there must be a physical interaction between someone and the disqualified person. My question is what are the acceptable combinations of age, gender, and sexual orientation of the enforcing official? If, as in this case, the competitor is female does that mean only another female is acceptable as the enforcer? What if that female enforcer is a lesbian? Would a male enforcer be acceptable if he were a homosexual? What about a transgender enforcer? Does it matter if the disqualified person is above the age of sexual consent? If under the age of sexual consent would it be acceptable to have another male enforce the disqualification if the male were also under the age of sexual consent, but not if he were above the age of sexual consent? No easy answers.

Good Troll job wrote:

I’ve seen football, basketball, baseball players dragged off. You forgot about that.

Really?

You have seen a FEMALE football, baseball, or basketball player dragged off the court/field, then chased around by a MALE bystander/coach/official/whomever once they were off?

Video please?

Good Troll job wrote:

And are you sure it was 45 sec? How long was she standing there to move?

I'm sure it was under 4 minutes and I'm sure she made it off the track and was still grabbed. James West wasn't grabbed.

10/10

That's why the rule was changed to one false start causing a DQ. I competed before the change and 2-3 false starts was common in a sprint race. The worst was the 110H where the hurdles needed to be reset. False starts in distance races almost never happened and had nothing to do with the rule change. I was in a few races where there were false starts. The races were restarted and nobody gave a crap.

I was at the CA state meet where Steve Lewis, who later won 3 olympic gold medals, was DQed. He had more than a few fans there and when became clear there was going to be a riot, he was allowed to run and he won the race. The false starts did not give him an unfair advantage so I had no problem with it. He was a great 400 guy and I was at the meet to see great athletes compete.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

I was at the CA state meet where Steve Lewis, who later won 3 olympic gold medals, was DQed. He had more than a few fans there and when became clear there was going to be a riot, he was allowed to run and he won the race. The false starts did not give him an unfair advantage so I had no problem with it. He was a great 400 guy and I was at the meet to see great athletes compete.

You mean he wasn't grabbed and chased around the track?

Shocking!

Fogrunr wrote:

WIStateGif wrote:

here you go

she is starting position#10

here it is slowed down to .2

https://gyazo.com/e6364da913b547d0b57be88f7fd53eae

Here it is normal speed

https://gyazo.com/e88440126fe051e86afb3d43279bea67

sorry I do not know how to format on the site so you will have to click the links,

Thanks for this video.

The ball of her foot was already on the line at "Set" or "On your mark" before they said "go" or fired the gun. They should have been watching the line more closely, and they should have stood them up and started again.

She was robbed. And she should be compensated.

Read the rules. NFHS 5-7. If she lines up on the line it is a DQ.

atrackandfieldfan wrote:

Does anyone else feel that she was manhandled?

Definitely. Was the backpack guy a coach and not an official? This is worse than when 261 was pulled off the Boston marathon course. Guy should have backed the hell off. Let the officials deal with it.

Maybe if she was born a guy she'd have gotten a sympathy card and allowed to continue...

OP Here. I had absolutely no intentions of this thread turning so ugly. I ask that people please think about the fact that a 17-18 year old girl will potentially read all of this and the same with a coach and family.

I was just hoping that a video of the start would be posted and maybe the validity of a false start would be questioned. The coach restraining as a problem didn’t even pop into my head. I do not know the runner or anyone involved and I would hold passing extreme judgement if you do not know them either.