Notre Dame DMR is questionable to me

Here are some of my thoughts. Because of arrogant folks like the ones at Notre Dame that just will do things their way, a huge problem is created for the NCAA Committee to try and clean up their mess. This happens all the time, idiot coaches do something idiotic, and then others have to try and clean up after them. Of course, most times there is no good remedy. The athletes that compete did nothing wrong, it was lousy meet management. All of you who are coming on here and complaining should sit down and e-mail the Notre Dame coaches and let them know of your unhappiness. Having qualifying standards the way they are over the 320 meter tracks is foolish. What chance does anyone ever have if they compete on a 200 track? The standards must be changed. The biggest thing we could do to clean up the problems are to get away from last chance meets. This is just one more way that schools that have money, and can get to those meets, have an advantage.

A little perspective here, this is just indoor track.

It's almost like getting upset about the officiating of a preseason football game.

So let me get this straight, you came on letsrun and in your very first post made the definitive statement:

"Conclusion: either in 2008 the runners were running too long or in 2009 the runners were running too short."

But you had not yet obtained an official answer to your enquiry as to whether the track used truly was not correct. Don't you think it might have been better to find out the definitive truth before making such absolute statements?

I'm not disputing that, just trying to determine if you had eliminated all other plausible reasons before making public anonymous accusations.

Again, not questioning what you saw. But remember again that if you were to spend hours going over videos of races that you could probably find plenty of violations that were not caught in real time with the naked eye (just witness all those pictures of race walkers not maintaining unbroken contact).

It would be great if each and every meet could have two or three dozen umpires stationed all around the track, both inside and outside, so that every last step of every competitor could be tracked to ensure that nobody stepped on any line.

But that ain't reality. Most meets don't have anywhere near the staffing you'll get for a National Championships and the result is you are going to have uncovered areas where it is possible that someone watching a video after the fact taken from a different angle than any official's viewpoint could detect lane violations.

If this reality really bothers you, then by all means, give more money to meets so they can bring in more qualified officials. Register yourself and get qualified so you can be a part of the solution by officiating at meets. Get your friends to do the same. Officials certainly don't appear out of a vacuum and unless you can continue to recruit new ones, you'll have fewer and fewer of them available. Where would your favourite meets be then?

This is not excusing any violations or mismeasurements of tracks, but asking you to step back from your vitriol and look at the bigger picture.

The over-sized track is the bigger issue empirically. Look at the number of qualifying marks made on oversized tracks in multi-lap events compared to those made on 1) unbanked 200m and 2) banked 200m tracks. Now it is true that runners peak for the races on over-sized tracks and the fields are specifically generated to have super-competitive and sometimes paced events, and this increases the number of quality marks. In fact, the drafting in these races might be more beneficial than the direct impact of the over-sized track. However, even with these things taken into consideration there is an issue that needs to be addressed, I think.

As for the empirical effect if the track were 5cm too 'small', note that it was the spate of fast times, especially in the DMR, that started this whole thing and yet apparently the cone placement had no effect on the number of "Autos" (0.40 seconds, all 15 well below 9:34, and the mile was 'aided' by no more than 0.16). As a second observation, there was so much chaos at the handoffs that if the team was not in the top two at the time, substantial time might be lost trying to connect the incoming and departing runners.

Maximus wrote:

Do any of you people read. His point is that there are two ways to measure a track, one with a curb and one without. Notre Dame had a curb last year and just cones this year, so the measurement is either wrong in the year they had the curb or the year they didn't. If they measured the track as if it had a curb, then this year with no curb, the track would be short. It really isn't that hard to figure out what he is saying, but most people are ignoring his point.

f*** you are retarded.

the track was always measured the same way. they didn't re-measure this year if that little rail wasn't there. so if nobody stepped on the line, then nobody ran a shorter race than last year.

so assuming it was measured correctly (obviously from the time it was built), there was no difference this year.

The meet was actually very well run, & the Notre Dame coaches did nothing wrong. The meet was a huge success with some super fast DMR times. It's unfortunate that slower teams such as yours will be left in the dust at nats. Maybe you should worry about your own team's training and quit disparaging others. You must come from a program that pales in comparison to that of Notre Dame Athletics...hence your claim of coaching arrogance. It's called confidence, you would probably recognize it if you had any.

Who was that skinny male coach wearing the tight Chic jeans and three inch heels running around the infield during the DMR? Was that the person they call Vig? That was GAY.....

Shakabra wrote:

14-flat wrote:

I take it that you of run this meet before as well?

What is wrong with you people? You are in college! It should read "teams would not HAVE run that fast..."

"would not of run" makes no sense.

I have run.

He has run.

I will run.

I am running.

They all make sense.

I of run. Makes no sense.

I see it all the time and what you are trying to do is phonetically spell the contraction "would've" as "would of" without thinking what you are really writing. "Would've" is fine as a contraction for the words "would have", but there is no place in English for "would of".

You're gay! You are gay!

Ok, so you should have run faster than! So all you dumb asses out there, if you were to run on the inside of the line, you would have 3/4" to a 1" drop from the track to the turf. See all of you are complaining about stuff that you do not have a clue about. So, take all your mathematical equations and all of your other excesses for not making it to the NCAA's and shove it!

Not the brightest person are you. If you don't understand what the dispute is then I am sorry, especially after much of this thread explains it. There is a different way to measure tracks if you have a rail than if you don't have a rail. It is pretty simple, but obviously you don't understand it and that is okay. But to call someone else retarded that does understand it is kind of ironic don't you think. To try to put it in simpler terms for you, if there is a rail, athletes tend to run farther out than if there is no rail. Therefore, tracks are required to be measured differently based on whether they have a rail or not. What is confusing is whether the track was initially measured with the rail or without. Either way, if you are sometimes having meets with the rail and sometimes without, one of the meets will have the races measured incorrectly. Are you starting to undertand it yet?

Um, yeah wrote:

But remember again that if you were to spend hours going over videos of races that you could probably find plenty of violations that were not caught in real time with the naked eye (just witness all those pictures of race walkers not maintaining unbroken contact).

It would be great if each and every meet could have two or three dozen umpires stationed all around the track, both inside and outside, so that every last step of every competitor could be tracked to ensure that nobody stepped on any line.

This is not excusing any violations or mismeasurements of tracks, but asking you to step back from your vitriol and look at the bigger picture.

If they left the railing up there would be far less need for umpires because if a runner steps on the railing he's likely to trip, and he steps on it once, he will do his best not to step on it again. But by taking the rail off the track you increase the likliehood of athletes inadvertently stepping on the line because it's only human nature to get closer to a painted line where there is no danger of tripping.

So, stepping back and tacking a look at the bigger picture, I would suggest that major meets - especially last chance qualifying meets - should be made to have a rail or have judges looking for and ready to dq runners for running on the inner lane. Unless you want to allow runners to run on the inner lane, in which case you'll need judges to look for runners stepping inside the inner lane. Inevitably - somewhere - you have to draw a line and say that there is some physical marcation upon which one may not rule without being dq'd.

The math will prove itself out when the final races are run on a legally measured track. Let's just compare the times. This will be what is needed to end this disucssion once and for all. Let's see how many of these teams run under 9:34.

I just read this entire thread and I just hope the NCAA does something about it. I would be very disappointed if they failed to uphold the simple rules of track and field. I mean, come on people, this isn't football. Those runners ran a shorter race than their counterparts across the country. Fifteen teams out of 2 heats? Yeah right.

Rman wrote:

The math will prove itself out when the final races are run on a legally measured track. Let's just compare the times. This will be what is needed to end this disucssion once and for all. Let's see how many of these teams run under 9:34.

Do the arithmetic; I think that the time effect on the race is minimal and NOT the reason for all of the Auto Qs - I am only getting 0.40 seconds for the DMR due to the 5cm misplacement of the cones.

I never really doubted most of the dmr's. Maybe the last 2 teams are questionable. The rest of them were so far under the standard that the little less distance run hardly mattered.

The painful part for me was the mile. People were in or out in the mile by a few tenths of a second. When the drmr's ran as well as they did, I knew that the milers would have minimum starters. Not only that, several of the milers, I felt and still feel, got in on the slim margin that the shortened track AND failure to dq for running on inner lane gave them.

I think the milers got a little over .7 and the dmr's about 2 seconds advantage by having the pole down. How much more of an advantage they got by the officials ignoring runners stepping on the inner lane would come down to individual cases. I clearly saw a number of qualified milers on the inner lane in their races. If the officials were calling the race according to the rules, they would have been dq'd right then and there.

I think that both ND and Washington should put up rails.

It reduces the need for umpires judging non lane races.

Get fast teams in, get fast guys in, Hernandez ran right in front of me 2:55.3 at the Armory coasting in way ahead, on a 300+M track a month later he is easily a 2:53.x guy.

Come on now it starts from there, teams get pulled out, DMR running 101.The track it matters not , every one of these teams is capable.

Look at their add from scratch marks.

I would give you an easy example.

lap staggers are 6m/lap/lane; a lane is ~42 inches, thus a 2-inch misplacement of the comes would have at most the effect of 6/400 m/lap for a lane x 2/42 inches per lane = % effect x 570sec/DMR = 0.4 seconds for the DMR and only 0.17 for the Mile.

These do NOT change the entries for the NCAA meet.

All of this is irrelevant. The NCAA Track & Field rules were NOT followed, so whether they only got a 0.4 break, or 0.17 break makes no difference. Somewhere along the way we have people who can't quite understand a simple concept. I have no doubts the lack of a railing did not contribute to everyone running fast. But I also have no doubts ND did not follow proper procedure.

26mi235 wrote:

lap staggers are 6m/lap/lane; a lane is ~42 inches, thus a 2-inch misplacement of the comes would have at most the effect of 6/400 m/lap for a lane x 2/42 inches per lane = % effect x 570sec/DMR = 0.4 seconds for the DMR and only 0.17 for the Mile.

These do NOT change the entries for the NCAA meet.

I feel your pain, 26mi235. Nobody is really listening to you because they just want an excuse to keep on squabbling. If doesn't matter if, as you've demonstrated, they're fighting over a moot point. In any event, keep up the good work. Always appreciate your posts, both here and on the T&FN board.

Sorry but your math is wrong as applied to this issue. You don't need to keep repeating it. It makes you look dumb.