In a draft legal OWS race, is it good or bad etiquette to draft off another person for all/majority/much of a race and then swing around and try to take the win?
I agree completely with E=H20 and Steven Munatones: If I lose to someone who drafts me for 2 miles and then sprints past me in the last 200m, I might have swum strong but I didn't swim very smart. If I am in the water to compete, I need to pay attention to my competitors. And just in case someone has snuck up on me, I should swim absolutely as hard as I can for the last 200m anyway.
This situation happened to me at this year's USMS 1-mile championship. I chided myself all the way home for not having realized my competitor was behind me until she moved aside and used her far superior sprinting ability to beat me to the finish by 3 seconds. But she won fair and square, and I congratulated her on a great swim.
nah, different discussion. not to hijack the board for cycling, but I am talking about bad etiquette to break away when the leader crashes or is taking a piss. A bona fide breakaway is a different story.
But your initial question was about something more like a "bona fide breakaway" and less like overtaking or attacking during a leader's mechanical problem or crash. I don't know what situation in an OW swim would be analogous to a crash, or how the rest of the racers would even know about it, or even whether such situations occur often enough to have their own etiquette.
I agree completely with E=H20 and Steven Munatones: If I lose to someone who drafts me for 2 miles and then sprints past me in the last 200m, I might have swum strong but I didn't swim very smart. If I am in the water to compete, I need to pay attention to my competitors. And just in case someone has snuck up on me, I should swim absolutely as hard as I can for the last 200m anyway.
This situation happened to me at this year's USMS 1-mile championship. I chided myself all the way home for not having realized my competitor was behind me until she moved aside and used her far superior sprinting ability to beat me to the finish by 3 seconds. But she won fair and square, and I congratulated her on a great swim.
nah, different discussion. not to hijack the board for cycling, but I am talking about bad etiquette to break away when the leader crashes or is taking a piss. A bona fide breakaway is a different story.
But your initial question was about something more like a "bona fide breakaway" and less like overtaking or attacking during a leader's mechanical problem or crash. I don't know what situation in an OW swim would be analogous to a crash, or how the rest of the racers would even know about it, or even whether such situations occur often enough to have their own etiquette.
