Rules Broken in Woman's Olympic Marathon Trials

FYI- Watch the athletes in field events. They have been helping each other out for decades. I'm sure this will be highlighted in the new Jesse Owens film.

I remember seeing in the Mens Olympic trials marathon one of the spectators giving Galen Rupp a wet towel.

Is this allowed?

I saw it during the NBC coverage. Did anyone else see that?

D.Katz wrote:

The IAAF has language in their rules prohibiting an athlete from taking someone's personal refreshment bottle. The intent is to prevent an athlete from purposely preventing another athlete from getting their bottle. The rule also states that the athlete should be warned first before a DQ.

USATF has similar language for the race walk but not for road running.

I will work with the Rules Committee to clarify these rules in writing.

As always, thanks for you attention and willingness to discuss the issues here.

I hope that given some of the concerns raised on this thread that the Rules Committee consider them and not simply adopt the IAAF rules. Or perhaps, if it doesn't already exist, it might add a provision giving race officials the discretion of warning an athlete if she is deemed to be providing inappropriate assistance to another athlete in the race and DQing if the assistance recurs.

Braking the rules wrote:

I remember seeing in the Mens Olympic trials marathon one of the spectators giving Galen Rupp a wet towel.

Is this allowed?

I saw it during the NBC coverage. Did anyone else see that?

That was an on-course aid station official......nice try.

Thanks - it's all about moving the sport forwards.

JoeGarland wrote:

Thanks David. The IAAF and USATF walking rules are the same. The road-race rules are different. I think you agree that they should be the same. (Maybe someone can do a red-line comparison?)

But substantively I would hope that in deciding what the rule should be, consideration should be given that under certain situations this one is contrary to a fundamental tenet of road racing, and results in one runner gaining an unfair advantage over another.

That is absolutely correct. Shalane most definitely had an advantage no other athlete in the race had - aided by another racer. Shalane would be sitting on the road missing the Olympic marathon team had it not been for Amy. The integrity of her qualification is clearly wrong. She did not qualify for the Olympic team on her own. Rationalization does not change the principle of the unfairness in her qualifying for Rio. Shalane would not have been able to qualify on her own.

Based on the rules and the instructions given to the runners I can't see where there was any violation of the rules. There was no rule or instruction plainly stating that you cannot retrieve another runner's personal fluid bottle and give it to the runner, and the race instructions given make it sound like that was allowed. I agree it needs to be clarified for the future.Regardless of whether Cragg retrieving Flanagan's fluid bottle was a violation, I doubt it helped Flanagan. This is how Flanagan describes her problems:

Flanagan getting more of her Gatorade or whatever her personal fluids were from the last table probably didn't help her any because her stomach wasn't emptying the fluids she had already taken. She was probably lucky she wasn't slowed down even more by her fluids coming back up.

Attention numb nuts, per the person who ACTUALLY MAKES THESE RULINGS there was no rules violation at this years trials.

You can debate all you want about what SHOULD be the ruling but the fact of the matter is Amy and Shalane absolutely, 100% DID NOT CHEAT per the rules that are currently in place.

coach deez nuts wrote:

Attention numb nuts, per the person who ACTUALLY MAKES THESE RULINGS there was no rules violation at this years trials.

You can debate all you want about what SHOULD be the ruling but the fact of the matter is Amy and Shalane absolutely, 100% DID NOT CHEAT per the rules that are currently in place.

You should work on your reading comprehension because that's just what I said in my post. My second point was that even if it was against the rules, Flanagan probably received no benefit from Cragg retrieving her fluids for her, so it did not make any difference anyway.

gaglrsg wrote:

That is absolutely correct. Shalane most definitely had an advantage no other athlete in the race had - aided by another racer. Shalane would be sitting on the road missing the Olympic marathon team had it not been for Amy. The integrity of her qualification is clearly wrong. She did not qualify for the Olympic team on her own. Rationalization does not change the principle of the unfairness in her qualifying for Rio. Shalane would not have been able to qualify on her own.

Must be fantastic to see alternate realities with such clarity! How do you know she wouldn't have just picked up a water bottle at a later table or shared Amy's fluids (already identified as perfectly legal) if she had not gotten her own fluid bottle? Hate to break it to you but you can't . Your "rationalization" does not change the fact there were no rules broken and you can't possible know if Shalane would not have been able to qualify on her own.

You're a dope.

0/10

coach deez nuts wrote:

Attention numb nuts, per the person who ACTUALLY MAKES THESE RULINGS there was no rules violation at this years trials.

You can debate all you want about what SHOULD be the ruling but the fact of the matter is Amy and Shalane absolutely, 100% DID NOT CHEAT per the rules that are currently in place.

Amy and Flanagan morally cheated.

D.Katz wrote:

Thanks - it's all about moving the sport forwards.

Thank you for this.

What is unusual about the Cragg-Flanagan fluids situation is that Cragg would not have offered the same assistance to anyone else. Would she have helped Desi? No. Would she have helped Kara? No. Her goal was to help her heat-stroked teammate beat the competition. That is providing unfair assistance.

No harm, no foul wrote:

Based on the rules and the instructions given to the runners I can't see where there was any violation of the rules. There was no rule or instruction plainly stating that you cannot retrieve another runner's personal fluid bottle and give it to the runner, and the race instructions given make it sound like that was allowed. I agree it needs to be clarified for the future.

You need to understand the difference between another competitor and a teammate. Would the same assistance be offered to a non-teammate runner breathing down your teammates back?

coach deez nuts wrote:

Attention numb nuts, per the person who ACTUALLY MAKES THESE RULINGS there was no rules violation at this years trials.

You can debate all you want about what SHOULD be the ruling but the fact of the matter is Amy and Shalane absolutely, 100% DID NOT CHEAT per the rules that are currently in place.

Cragg-Flanagan bent the rules too far. When have other teammates resorted to the level of assistance Cragg provided? It is similar to picking your teammate up and forcing them to cross the finish line. Without the special water bottle Flanagan would have dropped out. She essentially said so her, didn't know what she would have done without Cragg's help.

That's is true wrote:What is unusual about the Cragg-Flanagan fluids situation is that Cragg would not have offered the same assistance to anyone else. Would she have helped Desi? No. Would she have helped Kara? No. Her goal was to help her heat-stroked teammate beat the competition. That is providing unfair assistance.

Actually, it is not at all unusual in marathons for people who are not teammates but are running similar paces to latch onto each other, run in a group, and encourage each other. Similarly, the passing of water bottles happened during the race among people who were not teammates. None of that is against the rules and shouldn't be.

The business of retrieving the special fluids used by elites is a technical matter that did not violate the rules as interpreted by the officials at the race, and probably did not help Flanagan anyway because she wasn't able to absorb her special fluids by the end of the race as I posted above.

No harm, no foul wrote:

...and probably did not help Flanagan anyway because she wasn't able to absorb her special fluids by the end of the race as I posted above.

No, it did help Flanagan. Instrumental for her finishing the race. On her own she would never get that bottle.

gaglrsg wrote:

Shalane most definitely had an advantage no other athlete in the race had - aided by another racer. Shalane would be sitting on the road missing the Olympic marathon team had it not been for Amy. The integrity of her qualification is clearly wrong. She did not qualify for the Olympic team on her own. Rationalization does not change the principle of the unfairness in her qualifying for Rio. Shalane would not have been able to qualify on her own.

Well said.

Contrary to some assertions, Katz does not make the rules.

According to the rules, a runner cannot pick up another runner's bottles and hand it to them. Nor can you have someone else pick up your personal bottle and hand it to you.

No harm, no foul wrote:

coach deez nuts wrote:

Attention numb nuts, per the person who ACTUALLY MAKES THESE RULINGS there was no rules violation at this years trials.

You can debate all you want about what SHOULD be the ruling but the fact of the matter is Amy and Shalane absolutely, 100% DID NOT CHEAT per the rules that are currently in place.

You should work on your reading comprehension because that's just what I said in my post. My second point was that even if it was against the rules, Flanagan probably received no benefit from Cragg retrieving her fluids for her, so it did not make any difference anyway.

Sorry, wasn't coming after you (which you should be able to tell because I didn't quote you). Was going after all the other idiots on this thread who are harping on a rule being broken.