Coco:
From the article, it sounded like there was a lot of "manouvering" going on. Is that kind of behavior actually legal in the OW? No rules or time penalties or anything?
I don't understand international officiating at all, it seems that some people are just allowed to get away with things.
In this particular instance, the rules say that anyone who makes intentional contact, paces, or slipstreams another competitor gets a yellow card, then if it happens again they get the red card and are pulled.
In practice, this never happens.
Instructions at some races are that "group swimming is OK, drafting is not." Meaning that if there are three of you drafting that's OK, but if it's just two then it's not. In my opinion it's a ridiculous rule in practice.
USMS has rules on contact but none on drafting in open water events. This is probably good since outlawing drafting in a cable swim would be very hard to execute.
Coco:
From the article, it sounded like there was a lot of "manouvering" going on. Is that kind of behavior actually legal in the OW? No rules or time penalties or anything?
I don't understand international officiating at all, it seems that some people are just allowed to get away with things.
In this particular instance, the rules say that anyone who makes intentional contact, paces, or slipstreams another competitor gets a yellow card, then if it happens again they get the red card and are pulled.
In practice, this never happens.
Instructions at some races are that "group swimming is OK, drafting is not." Meaning that if there are three of you drafting that's OK, but if it's just two then it's not. In my opinion it's a ridiculous rule in practice.
USMS has rules on contact but none on drafting in open water events. This is probably good since outlawing drafting in a cable swim would be very hard to execute.
