J.R. wrote:
Tracky wrote:What are you talking about. How can you go back and give him the clearance.
By going back and... giving the clearance to him.
Or... just staying right here... and doing it... now.
Why is this so hard to understand for some of you.
Because it's a stupid thing, that is stupid, and we'd need to be stupid to understand it cause it's stupid, and we're not, and therefore... it's really hard... to be stupid... see.
Wow people really!!!
You can't go back and give him clearance after the fact BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE THAT HE DROPPED OUT BECAUSE OF HIS HAMSTRING. It is too late now. It needed to happen right then with the meet medical staff so we could know for sure. Now it is just someone saying that is why he dropped out. That is why the rules are in place, so someone doesn't do this.
Some of you guys are all about fairness, but are only concerned with your guy and not why the rules were put in place. So do you care about the guy who was the first person out of making it to regionals in the 10k. Maybe that was his dream, to make it to regionals. He knew he was close and just missed out. Now he sees some guy declared for the 10k, dropped out of the race and then ran the 5k two days later. If the guy who was denied his trip to regionals by a guy who just entered both races to see which race he had a better chance to get to nationals and then dropped out of the 10k without giving an honest effort so he could save himself for the 5k, how do you think the guy feels. Now if he knew the guy gave an honest effort and really did have a hamstring injury, that is a different story. That is why you need to get it cleared by a meet medical staff. It would be nice to just be able to believe everyone, but sadly many people would lie about it.
I gave a perfect example of an athlete of mine that suffered from exercise induced asthma. She was entered in the 5k and 3k at conference, had to drop out of 5k and couldn't catch her breath for 30 minutes with medical people all around her. We got her cleared at that time to be able to run the 3k the next day if she was able to. There was definite proof that she indeed planned to run the entire race at her best effort and only dropped out because of a medical issue.
Even with this example of how it is supposed to work, people ripped on my athlete for having an asthma attack or me for following the proper protocol. I knew the rules, followed them and my athlete was able to compete. The VT tech did not follow the rules if indeed there was a hamstring issue and he never got him cleared and it is not fair to the other competitors, especially the one that was denied regionals because of the VT runner declaring in a race he never finished and for all we know, was only to save himself for the 5k. We can't know it was a hamstring issue because protocol wasn't followed.