CONTROVERSY at USATF Club Nationals - Tinman cheats

Seriously? I was there watching and Tinman crushed everyone. What is the point of this whiney cry fest? What team would have even deserved to win otherwise? You could have eliminated their top two guys and they still would have crushed the 2nd place team. Get over it.

I’m so mad about this.

I was going to win the race but then I jogged ahead of Morgan Pierson, turned around 180 degrees and ran backwards, saw his 361 logo and determined that I should slow down and not try to win the race.

I was motivated only by the prospect of defeating the Adidas-clad Tin Mob.

There were "many" masters runners in the open race field? That seems a bit surprising.

Anywho, it would be even more surprising if even half of the guys on TME ever earn at least half of their annual income in a given year based solely on their running ability. Any of these guys lived in Boston or Portland and they'd be solid club runners there, too. TME lucked into having a really good pro triathlete who is happy to do this in his off-season plus a guy in his first year out of college that just missed the cut for a genuine sponsorship. They couldn't beat ADP with Hunter and Parsons (who now can't be a scoring runner in any US champs), they faced a field weakened by this being the preseason to an Olympic year. Most of the usual big players at this event didn't field full-strength squads.

WhoseTeamIsItAnyway? wrote:

They are all welcome to run as individuals in different uniforms. If you want to compete as a team, you need to wear a team uniform. It seems simple.

It is even simpler than you think. They were wearing a team uniform. But the uniform doesn't entail everything. Just like they can wear different socks, different shoes, a watch or no watch, a headband or not, etc, a small logo on the singlet can differ without it no longer being a team uniform.

whats a uniform wrote:

WhoseTeamIsItAnyway? wrote:

They are all welcome to run as individuals in different uniforms. If you want to compete as a team, you need to wear a team uniform. It seems simple.

It is even simpler than you think. They were wearing a team uniform. But the uniform doesn't entail everything. Just like they can wear different socks, different shoes, a watch or no watch, a headband or not, etc, a small logo on the singlet can differ without it no longer being a team uniform.

In the end I’d say the biggest sin the Tinman squad is guilty of is not having a more professional kit to race in. They should take better advantage of such opportunities by wearing kits that give the team and its sponsors more exposure.

Even many high school teams look more professional than the Tinman squad did. Don’t get me wrong either I love that they are no-nonsense and just came to compete more than anything else, but as professionals they have to keep that sponsorship money coming in and that means capitalizing on the situations better.

We have a team that has been around for a lot of years with open and masters runners. Every year or two we order a bunch of the cheapest same color singlets available from Eastbay, Running Warehouse or wherever and get our team logo silk-screened on them. We probably have half a dozen different brands for our singlets, including a couple that have gone out of business. We never have had any issue with uniforms at any national meet. The OP is just doing silly whining because he either is envious of the success of Tinman's program or has some other axe to grind with them. Once the USATF official put those little stickers on their bibs at check-in uniforms became a non-issue.

As noted, they could have crushed 2nd place even without Pearson. It's just bizarre in this day and their easy access to screen printing that all of them, Pearson included, wouldn't want to be in TME logoed singlets for this, even if Pearson's was white with a 361 logo. What's marketable, copy of results aggregate or visual images of the guys racing? They sell logoed TME Adidas singlets to the general public from their website, for christsakes! They're admittedly doing something right but they missed the boat here.