Interesting discussion all the way around and as an official I appreciate that there are some of you out there that care about these types of things. A few thoughts:
Some of you are rationalizing the correctness of not calling this rule infraction because it allows her to be selected onto the team to represent the US at Worlds. I think it is unfortunate that the the sole criteria for selection to the team is the performance at Nationals. In order to maintain the integrity of the rules that everyone agrees to abide by when they compete, we should allow a scenario where Emma gets DQ'd for violating the rule (as written) but still can be selected to represent the US at Worlds.
It would seem to me in this would allow (in this situation) for:
- the umpire to report the incident without worrying about whether or not something as "unintentional" as this might affect the makeup of the team for Worlds.
- the referee to make a call that follows what is written in the current rule book without worrying about whether that decision keeps Emma from being selected to the team.
- USATF to still select the best athlete to represent us in this event in Beijing
- the coach of the 2nd place runner to not have to worry about filing a protest for the correct call to be made knowing that by doing so he runs the risk of being the guy who caused our best athlete to not be selected to the team.
I also think that we would all benefit by more transparency in the calls/decisions made by the officials at these meets. There should exist some type of referee's report that is compiled to explain the reason for any yellow flag thrown by an umpire and decisions made by the referee after receiving that umpire's incident report. It would also include information on referee & jury of appeals decisions after protests are filed. This information already exists as all these things are put into writing - it is just a matter of compiling it and making it public.
With regards to the "spirit of the rule" vs "the rule as written" argument - I feel that if the rule as written doesn't accurately reflect the spirit of the rule then it needs to be rewritten so there is no discrepancy between the two. This alone would go a long way to clearing up the transparency issue above...there would be no guessing as to what the right call is/should be.
Lastly - kudos for those of you participating in this thread that are helping others understand some of the nuances that understand when it comes to rules & officials like:
- HS, NCAA & USATF have different rule books and you need to make sure you are referring to the correct rule before you can apply it to a situation. Even if you are using the right rule book, you need to make sure it is the most current version as rules can be revised from one to the next.
- The officials with the flags around the track are Umpires - not Referees. The Umpire is there to report observations of potential rule infractions which are given to the Referee to make a decision as to whether or not an infraction has occurred. Umpires do not decide anything - they are the eyes of the referee. This is why it is possible in some cases to see a yellow flag go up and no DQ - the umpire may read the umpire's report, talk to the umpire, review video (if allowable) and decide that what was observed is not an infraction.