This is one of those rare instances that I hope I'm being trolled. If I met the 15 year old that kept posting under different names pretending to be Incognito-Blair-Cullen with the sole intention of making him look like the biggest douche on the planet (not to mention garner a few responses from people like me), I would shake that acne covered hand and say "well done". Truly I would have respect for you. The sad opposite side of this coin is that there is potentially an adult male out there trying to defend and/or justify an easily avoidable strike to an (admittedly clueless) woman.
I mean really, the volume of random, one-time posters in this thread with comments like "I was on the girls side until..." or "clearly you can't expect to not get hit if you're not paying attention on the course" or "[insert virulent insult towards chick here]" seems astonishing. Countless random people want to enter the thread once, leave their defense of Blair (or scolding of Alison), and never return. Kinda odd.
So I'm done feeding the trolls. If "anyone" (wink wink) wants to counter any of these points below, feel free and I'd love to hear your rationale.
-The first frame of the video in which Blair is visible, he is on the line with no one in front of him and no one approaching (evidenced by the lack of participants passing after the hit). Yet when the hit was made, he was 1-2 foot-widths inside the line. Perhaps 'veer' was incorrect, but clearly he drifted in her direction without warrant.
*After checking: Two strides out from the strike his right foot is on the yellow line. One stride after, his right foot is two foot-widths inside.
-Their bodies were far enough apart at the time that no contact was necessary. He had to reach out in order to make contact. And leaned into it. He reached out for her a stride before contact. To the genius who thinks I claimed 'they weren't close enough for an arm bar', re-read my comment, then go look up 'warrant' (the verb - in case you're still confused). And I'm terribly sorry for injecting some humor into my commentary. Arm bar is indeed incorrect, but it was the funniest sounding wrestling move that came to mind (you see, to me, Blair is as comical as a WWF wrestler in his douchey theatrics so I tried to draw a parallel connecting the two). Rather than explain any time I change semantics to make light of this ridiculous situation, whenever I refer to Blair hitting Alison shall be referred to as "the strike" moving forward.
Can't wait to see how many new one-time handles pop up in the next day with a "wow, I just saw the video and I changed stances and totally agree she was at fault now". Always good for a laugh. Won't be posting here again until someone (viably) offers some counter-arguments. Man, I love-hate being trolled.