Big 12 Women's 5000, girls asked to step off track.

That should not have happened.

really infuriating if what you say is true. Now if they were lapped several times and were about to finish in the high 18s this is reasonable but not for runners in the 17s. That is still a respectable 5k time.

This is what they do in the Big-12 5000m. You fall behind by 400m, you're out.

Yeah, this happens in a lot of conference meets that have weak schools in it. In ours, if you got lapped at all you were out.

Do they stop people in the 100 who are behind more than .7 seconds?

lazy officials wrote:

Do they stop people in the 100 who are behind more than .7 seconds?

If they were being lapped, I'm sure they would. Especially in a sprint race.

Big 12 aren't smart enough to keep track of runners that are down a lap so they just boot them aside.

400m on a 200m track is two laps down. At that point they are merely interfering with the runners that count. This is a championship meet, not a kumbyah session.

26mi235 wrote:

400m on a 200m track is two laps down. At that point they are merely interfering with the runners that count. This is a championship meet, not a kumbyah session.

Iowa State doesn't have a 200m track. Even so, it's not an issue if the officials are competent. Oh wait . . . . this is the typical track official we're talking about. Never mind.

Some teachers I had in high school said they always did this in college meets when they ran - before you got lapped even once they'd pull you out of the way. One of them who was so-so said he ended up focusing on the 800 because he never got to finish 3ks and 5ks.

Figure it out, if they let them stay in after being gapped by 400m, when they have NO chance of placing, that would mean a flurry of perhaps 10 runners to wade through on the last lap. Leaving those runners in won't just slow down the top runners, it may play a role in determining the winner and the top placers.

How many runners you have to weave around and where you do so should not play a role in who wins or scores points.

Let me help you wrote:

Figure it out, if they let them stay in after being gapped by 400m, when they have NO chance of placing, that would mean a flurry of perhaps 10 runners to wade through on the last lap. Leaving those runners in won't just slow down the top runners, it may play a role in determining the winner and the top placers.

How many runners you have to weave around and where you do so should not play a role in who wins or scores points.

Flurry of 10 runners? In a field of 19? In a 5000? On a 300m track?

Dude, it's just a race. This isn't UFC 179 or whatever.

Here's an idea -- let the competitors deal with it and keep the old men in bad, not-fitting khakis out of it.

200 or 400?

A great way to discourage young athletes from continuing to take part in the sport!

No kidding. Terrible policy.

Institute a lower qualifying std if you want a smaller field.

Not sure if they still do this, but years ago in Conference-USA they had a policy where you had to drop out if you were lapped in the indoor 5,000, down to the top 12 runners. It became absurd. If there was a really good runner in the field, all the women would go out much harder than they were used to so they would avoid being lapped early on. It was always crazy when there were 4 or 5 women close together between 10th and 14th place. As the leader came up on them, they would all be sprinting hoping to be in the top 12 before getting lapped so they could finish the race.

The crazy thing is that it was the coaches that voted on this rule. It wasn't unanimous, as some coaches argued strongly against it. If you were a runner whose race plan was to run an even pace and move up slowly through the field, you could have someone that could potentially place getting lapped and forced to drop out, before having a chance to work their way up to the top 8.

A shift in quality could have a major impact under that rule. If they have a 15:40 runner go out fast, you could lose athletes who have a chance to place who should be removed by that rule. I'm more of a fan of the top 12 performances plus faster than the average of the previous final scorer.

I don't know the current rule, but the Big 10 had the rule in the late 80's that if you got lapped in the 10k you were done, at least until they were down to a certain field size. I remember a story about a Michigan runner that had been motioned off the track by an official. He refused initially to the point to where he dodged officials and his coach who tried to pull him from the track. He was a scholarship athlete having a less than stellar day.

Don't blame the officials...this is a policy in the rule book that is granted to the games committee to decide. The officials are just enforcing what the committee decided.