At some point, in a 10,000 meter race, the guy was probably not hugging the rail and running the shortest distance. So he most likely ran more than 10,000 meters, thus negating the advantage claimed from three steps inside the line on a straight, which isn't an advantage to begin with.
Yeah the current rule and this dq is absurd. I wish they would revise thsi stuff... something like like a 1 or 2 second penalty at most. I don't know, it does piss me off when people protest instead of just let something go 'cause he deserved the win.
LetsRun.com wrote:
Says that Nate Tassey, who won the 10k is a dq on the results, anyone know what’s up?
Interesting response to the perennial question of which would you rather have, a record or the gold medal? What if you set the Div III record earlier in the year, but now at Div III you are awarded first place, because the guy who won the race was DQed. Which would you prefer?
But without that singular point they would have finished in a tie for 30th place in the team scores instead of their very prestigious 26th place finish.
I don't normally think "rules are rules" is much of an argument. Rules exist in contexts, and they have different rationales. For instance, most of us would be rightly pissed off if we were ticked for jaywalking when no cars were around. We also tend to think it's stupid when athletes get DQ'ed for things like minor uniform violations (e.g., a colored sports bra showing underneath a singlet).
That said, I don't think this is the kind of rule that you can ignore. It's central to the competitive structure of the sport, and it actually affects strategy. Knowing that a bad step on the curve can end your race means that smart athletes are careful. I think this is more like a thrower accidentally stepping out of the front of the circle after clearly completing a good throw.
That doesn't mean I think a DQ in this context is a good rule. At least the thrower only scratches one throw for a bad step, but losing your entire race is pretty draconian. I think there are a lot of ways it could be tweaked:
- You could say intentionally stepping over is a DQ, but if it's inadvertent, then the officials have discretion to assess a time penalty (one second per step?) so long as no advantage is gained.
- You could even say that up to three steps, as long as unintentional, are fine, since geometrically there's probably no way to run shorter than the total distance just stepping briefly inside and then outside of the rail.
- You could also have a rule where officials have discretion to rule "no advantage" so long as there's no protest. I actually think it would be good for sportsmanship if a norm developed that people are expected not to protest unless they think they were actually harmed by the violation. Sort of like how everyone likes to see soccer teams kick the ball out of bounds when a player for the other team is injured, I think people would really applaud the second place guy who says, "yeah, I could've talked to the official and gone home with the title, but the other guy deserved it."