Here's something we are all missing. Something bad happened to the poor chap earlier in the race. Look at his leg, it is beat up pretty bad.
http://img20.brightroom.com/backprint1/119156/119156-020-016f.jpg
Is it reasonable to think that he was also concerned about the woman backing into his bloody leg on the run.
Interested observer wrote:
I can assure you that I am not the guy or his buddy. You I guess are seeing it one way, along with Alison and a few others. Most of us are looking at this the correct way; selfish woman looking for adoration from her family walks backwards on a race course and gets slightly shoved and then continues to walk backwards and almost knocks over an old man if he had been moving faster. Then she has several children cross the finish line with her, which is absolutely not legal in a sanctioned race. Then a blogger and the race director lie about what happened, going so far as to say she wAs punched in the face.
Okay, please show me where he went out of his way and also, where did he exactly STRIKE her. Wow, just wow.
Keep up the mantra of blaming her, dude. Same way that you can claim it's okay to strike a chick if she was talking back. I don't need to show you how he went out of his way to hit her. It's clearly in the video and explained in the text I quoted in my last post.
-He starts in the center of the road (on the yellow line), but drifts inward towards her in the last few strides.
-At the point of contact, she was a good 6-12 inches away from him. He was trying to make a point and went above and beyond necessary action to make sure he hit her. Avoidable AND intentional.
Dennis Reynolds wrote:
Dennis Reynolds wrote:This is one of the stupidest things letsrun has ever cared about. Some tri hack loser "hitting" an even worse tri hack loser who happens to have a vagina.
Stand by this even more after the video.
If you watch that and think either one is completely in the clear you are an idiot. He could have moved, she shouldn't have walking backwards on the wrong side of the course. Neither should be DQ'd, it never should have become a "thing", move on with your lives.
from the RD's statement (he's a lot to blame for all of this), she was actually on the right side of the road at point of contact, he was slighly (6-12 inches) over the yellow line. That said it looked like he was trying to thread the needle because the old guy was way off in Tri-guy's (Blair's) lane.
Cmon Dennis Reynolds you seem like a righteous, no fun, self important a-hole yourself. Let us have our fun.
It looks like he is supposed to be running on the right-hand side of the road (i.e. the side that she is screwing-around on). So would you really expect him to avoid her by running further into the left-hand (wrong) side of the road?
The contact is unfortunate but it's clearly caused by the woman. The guy, 4 hours (or whatever) into the event, is really expected to anticipate what the heck she is doing? That's ridiculous. He likely saw her talking to her friends/family in his lane and moved to the center of the road as a precaution. Not saying he's a saint, but you can't think well at that point and you definitely can't dance around like Baryshnikov. The woman was backing up blind across his lane and into her lane. If he was thinking well and at peak agility then the right move would have been a stutter-step to the right, not the left, in my opinion. I would have yelled much earlier to give her warning.
The guy should be reinstated.
This solidifies my feeling that hobby-parades should be run separately from racing events. It's an attitude difference.
Wow!!!
Was kind of leaning towards believing the girl in this one but after seeing the video it is clearly her fault.
What in the world is she complaining about. She was barley touched at all.
But after seeing her finish line picture with all the kids, I kind of figured what type of person she was. Her pride was hurt.
The punch, shove, forearm shiver, or whatever by a pretty big guy running at least 8mph knocked this small woman about a half step to the side.
There was barely any contact, if any.
Waaaaaaaaay overblown.
This thread delivers.
sdfghs wrote:
Keep up the mantra of blaming her, dude. Same way that you can claim it's okay to strike a chick if she was talking back.
Allison, "King Charles," or whichever of their friends you are. This exactly why you guys need to be sued. You're proven liars who are just digging yourselves in deeper in your efforts to ruin a man as abuser of women. The tri could totally take you to the cleaners who all the lies, punches, punches to the face, and all the claiming you can be sure this how he treats women in all areas of his life, etc. You're just coming off as evil, horrible people who are blind to how they should cut their losses as quickly as possible.
Dennis Reynolds wrote:If you watch that and think either one is completely in the clear you are an idiot. He could have moved, she shouldn't have walking backwards on the wrong side of the course. Neither should be DQ'd, it never should have become a "thing", move on with your lives.
Regarding the original incident, you're absolutely right. Two people shared a moment of poor judgement, and despite claims of cuts and bruises, no one was hurt. Big deal.
The aftermath is what interests me. The woman or her friends appear to have intentionally made it a "thing" by:
1) Literally crying about it
2) Complaining to the race director
3) Complaining to the world in multiple blogs
4) Publishing the name of the guy
5) Grossly exaggerating his actions
The bloody leg wrote:
Here's something we are all missing. Something bad happened to the poor chap earlier in the race. Look at his leg, it is beat up pretty bad.
http://img20.brightroom.com/backprint1/119156/119156-020-016f.jpgIs it reasonable to think that he was also concerned about the woman backing into his bloody leg on the run.
Ahhh, I see where you're going with this, the ol' "wounded animal defense", I like it.
hrunner wrote: Yeah - she was a little oblivious - so what? Have you people walked around a city? Biked anywhere? Driven anywhere? In terms of obliviousness causing problems - hers falls on the very low end.
The very low end? When I ran Boston a few years ago, I suffered from serious leg cramps and came to a complete stop at the front end of a water station at mile 25 to get a cup of Gatorade. That caused the guy behind me to bump into my back. How do you describe this in the scale of obliviousness? (I'd think it's much lower than Alison's, but perhaps you have a different opinion.)
And of course, I said "sorry" to the other guy because I knew it was completely my fault to stop at the front end.
a joke! wrote:
Yeah, sounded like he said "get out of the way" as he was running by. That got him DQd?? He put his hand out to make sure she didn't continue backing into him. That was in no way a "punch in the face," or enough to cause bruising! She was totally oblivious to the course and those competing around her. SHE should be DQd.
After watching the video, I have to agree that she is completely at fault. The guy is sprinting into the finish and she aimlessly walks diagonally into his path. I didn't see a push in the video at all, just saw him put his hand out to keep her out of his way.
I have had the same thing happen to me in track workouts. One time, a woman was talking to her coach on the infield, and she walked backwards without looking into lane 1. I was doing 16 X 200m with a short rest and was on my last repeat. Things happened so fast that the best I could manage was to yell "TRACK!!" as we collided shoulders. I never expected her to keep walking backwards all the way into my trajectory.
The male runner in this situation could have been less of a jerk, but he was well justified in not allowing her to walk into him and injure them both. He didn't call her anything obscene, just vocalized what he had to..."OUT OF THE WAY!"
I mean seriously, who the hell walks backwards into the path of other runners that are finishing a race?
I take back my statements.
Except, triathlon is st00pid.
Hey, if you're not punching someone then you're not really trying.
Dennis Reynolds wrote:
move on with your lives.
Says the person who keeps coming back to this thread and posting.
Man, that vid makes this endeavor pretty anti-climatic. Both were in the wrong, hell, almost everyone involved in the whole mess was wrong. Blair needs to work on some tri ettiquette though. By that point in the run he should have been hugging the fence and high fiving the crowd. Maybe doing the airplane or other crazy hi-jinks. Oh well....next controversy?
What she wrote on her blog and her statement on her friends blog, must be some of the most self-righteous and hypocritical banter I've ever read.
Obviously there's disagreement over whether Blair could have shown more restraint by not making contact with her, but if you were him, and read what she and her friend wrote about you, admit that it'd take some serious restraint not to respond and rip her a new one.
Bungee wrote:
Looking at the video, one thing is clear. If the old man was any faster, she would have been "punched in the face" twice.
This made me laugh!
This woman's friends are the worst. They are all posting on the blog, full of "outrage" and asking for the man's head:
Sue SteinbergSeptember 15, 2013 at 9:15 PM
I cannot believe that there are advocates of Mr. Cullen's behavior. I cannot believe that it matters whether the attack was a shove or a punch. I cannot believe that Mr. Cullen does not recognize that what he did was shameful, or at the least worthy of an apology. I cannot believe that Alison has not gone public with her story, with the footage or with the ridiculous words of Mr. Cullen's anonymous friends. In my opinion, she should have pressed charges and spoken to the press.
Antonia StoutSeptember 15, 2013 at 2:45 PM
After reading everyones posts, I decided to look up the rules and regulations on the Ironman site to be absolutely clear. Here is rule # 5:
5. Fraud, theft, abusive treatment of volunteers, staff or others and acts of poor sportsmanship are grounds for immediate disqualification and will result in the contestant being suspended from competing in any IRONMAN or IRONMAN 70.3 event in the future.
It doesn't matter what Alison was doing or why, Cullen broke the rules, plain and simple. When you break the rules, you get disqualified.
Louise SkinnerSeptember 15, 2013 at 10:25 AM
I can't believe what I am reading! I was there as a spectator and supporter and saw the incident along with my two children, I mention that not for the apathy vote but to state that i wanted my girls to watch athletes compete in a good sportsmanlike manner and see what they could possibly achieve. That wasn't the case when they saw a man shove Alison with extreme force after she kissed her 3 children and high fived her friends after coming out of the transition area.
He defines what these races should NOT be about -- narcissistic elitism that makes the majority of people afraid of competing. He cares more about his personal record and his medal than he does about a humanity. For him to not realize that he was at fault, and there be no apology or remorse - he does not deserve the second place medal or to be called a tough man athlete!
Videographer's fault, he saw the whole thing, and failed to warn her based on a warped attraction to violence, then released video to bolster his career.
