The Good - Yesterday, I enjoyed my morning out cheering on many of you guy's out there racing. There were some excellent performances and its good to see people that have not raced for a while coming back to form. I was naturally disappointed not to be racing but figured if I could not race at least I would get the opportunity to take in the race and support you guy's.
The Bad - I found myself becoming more and more 'pissed off' as I watched the race unfold from the transition area. The first thing I thought was why was the transition area so small? Bike were so tightly packed in and the runways particularly at the ends of the transition were far too narrow. This later came into play as there were several people that struggled to get around the tight turns and fell. Understandable if there were not enough space but there was half the field still available! Then the first male arrives back intp T2 on the sprint race, no marshall on the gate and no signage at that stage, he goes the wrong way only too be sent back by the bike marshalls. The first 5 back are off on the run and back wthin the next 15 minutes, ran out of signage and no marshalls. Very bad, I know the rules and every athlete should know the course, sometimes even when you have been around the course in the car it looks very different when you are racing. If race organisers have to hide behind that rule then something very bad has gone wrong with the organisation. This is the second year that the sprint at Swanage has had a low priority and has gone badle wrong!
The Ugly - Ok the sprint was a shocker, surely the big race a South West series event will run like clockwork..? Well not if you were watching the swim, the guy that was leading his wave by a good margin suddenly had a lot of comapany as a large group cut the course short, reports from athletes at the turn around say that some people were getting out and running around the flag other just did not bother, swimmers were swimming into each other head on as there was little seperation between the in and out swimmers. If this was your A race and you had just had a minute taken out of your lead by a group not marshalled properly to go around the bouy you just might be pissed off!
15 years ago we would have said..'Its a new sport in its infancy, organisers are just learning how to put the races on, they are doing it for the love of the sport and the event'. Now we have full time race organisers making their living from putting on races and if they expect to charge full service fees ( 55 I understand was the fee for yesterdays race) we should expect professional race organisation as a minimum, its no longer good enough not to have a fast results service, or for the lifeguards to turn up late or not having enough fencing for the transition or no marshalls at key points on the run course.
I feel irritated enough to put my money where my mouth is and organise my own!
Rob
