America––so goes the truism––is constructed of laws, not men. Triathlon, one hopes, is not a construct of laws and rules, but of races and those who participate in them. Rules are certainly necessary––mandatory. But I've come across a couple of enforcement issues lately that have caused me to raise an eyebrow, and I'd like to throw out an idea or two––just food for thought.

Perhaps the time has come to examine our approach as a sport. To the degree that we the participants––and USA Triathlon, our sport's national governing body––are joined at the hip in this multisport community, perhaps it is time USAT's folks update the rules (as needed) as well.

The first violation was "committed" by a national-caliber age-group woman in her mid-40s while competing in a race last year that qualified its top finishers for age-group worlds. She used a small triangular plastic stand in which her rear wheel rested, and placed her bike in this stand, which was in turn placed in the transition area in the spot designated for her. She used the stand because, as she said in her written appeal, "my designated rack area was crowded, making it difficult to place my handlebars on the provided metal rack."

This woman completed the race and earned a spot in worlds. But she lost her qualifying spot because of a penalty imposed for violating the following rule:

7.2 PLACEMENT OF EQUIPMENT: All participants shall place equipment only in the properly designated and individually assigned bicycle corral and shall at all times keep their equipment confined to such properly designated areas. Any violation of this Section shall result in a variable time penalty.

She subsequently appealed her penalty, arguing successfully that she never broke that rule (which, of course, she didn't). But the three-person appeals panel found that her penalty should still be upheld because she had instead, they decided, broken the following rule:

3.4.k UNAUTHORIZED EQUIPMENT. No participant shall use any equipment which the Head Referee determines to be improper, including but not limited to equipment which might provide an unfair advantage or endanger other participants. Unless otherwise provided for in these Rules, any violation of this Section shall result in a variable time penalty.

The chair of the panel issuing the written ruling upholding the penalty against this age-group offender wrote in his decision:

"...any panel will uphold the imposition of the time penalty if it determines that any other Rule supports the time penalty imposed by the Head Referee."

In other words, if in your appeal you can successfully demonstrate that you did not break the rule for which you were penalized, the infraction can still be upheld if the panel can flip through the rule book and find another rule that you've broken.

Personally, I find the statement by the hearing chair unfortunate, and I'd find it downright chilling if it had been issued in support of a system of laws and rules that had more impact on all our lives.

The second infraction that caused me to start involved Erik Burgan, a pro triathlete who lives in San Diego and has been racing for a long time. He is probably the most mechanically adept and technically knowledgeable pro––as regards equipment and bikes and stuff like that––of all the pros I know. While many of the pros can't change their own tires, this guy can strip a bike down to its constituent parts and build it back up again better than the factory that originally built it. He is also just about the nicest pro I know, and is so regarded by a wide cross-section of those in the sport at every level.

It was ironic, then, when his 10th place finish at Wildflower last week was relegated to 13th because of four minutes in penalty time. He was penalized under the rule "Abandoned Equipment":

ABANDONED EQUIPMENT. No participant shall leave any equipment or personal gear on the race course. Any violation of this Section shall result in a variable time penalty.

What equipment did he abandon? His water bottle carrier came loose during the ride. He knew his water bottle was going to fall out at some point. Rather than have it fall out in a dangerous moment, he tossed it by the roadside.

The head referee on that day was Kathy Matejka, and there is no finer, fairer, referee in the sport of triathlon. If Matejka needed to enforce that rule, I'm sure she did so without feeling particularly good about it. I don't know that it was the referees who were to blame that day. Perhaps it was the rule itself or, more precisely, the limitations placed by the rules on both the athletes and those who must enforce them.

In both cases, I think we must ask ourselves these questions:

1. Did the infraction advance the athlete vis-a-vis his or her competitors?
2. Would a cross-section of USAT members––when presented the facts of either of these cases––tend toward thinking that justice was best served by having, or not having, a penalty enforced?
3. What ought the penalty to be?

In Burgan's case, I think we must look at the bigger picture––specifically, what is USAT's mission, and what is our mission as "co-op owners" of a sport? If we are to criticize USAT for occasionally––or perhaps more than occasionally––becoming absent-minded about elements of our sport that do not directly involve Olympic development, let us consider that one goal USAT considers vital and core: finding and developing talented pros. How is that goal furthered when you're looking for ways to erase a pro's fine race result and therby take money out of that pro athlete's hands?

Perhaps the abandonment rule is a good one (although I wonder if the race leader would've been penalized if he or she had had a flat, and had left the punctured tire on the course). If the rule is to be enforced, though, ought we not to do what other professional sports do? Ought we not to differentiate between penalties in which a real, substantial, unfair advantage is gained, versus those which simply occur through a mental lapse, or an unfamiliarity with the rules? In a case where a chinstrap is unsecured too early, or a water bottle must be jettisoned for safety reasons––or any reason, really––can we not give the athlete a choice between a monetary penalty and a time penalty?

I doubt that Erik Burgan would've intentionally left his water bottle on the side of the road if he knew there was a rule against it, and especially if he'd have to cough up $250. I'm quite sure, in fact, that he'd have preferred to keep the bottle and its contents with him. He did, after all, have it with the purpose of using it. But I guarantee he'd have rather spent $250––if the penalty had to be enforced––and taken the $500 check for 10th place (netting him $250, plus whatever bonus money he might've earned, plus bettering his world ranking), instead of getting no money for 13th place.

Had Burgan been penalized for drafting, or cutting the course––something that everybody who knows Burgan knows would be extremely unlikely––then no, I don't think he should be able to buy his way out of that. But for infractions that don't affect the outcome of the race, then a choice of penalties––time or money––would be more appropriate. It would keep a rule in place, help USAT disenfranchise fewer of its budding, hopeful pros, and make the whole process a bit more fair.

Let’s face it. In other pro sports you’re only going to get DQ’d from a match or game if you do something that could conceivably get you a night (or more) in jail. Why are we threatening the livelihood of a pro athlete when he or she breaks an ultimately inconsequential rule? That sort of draconian measure doesn’t happen anywhere else in industry.

As for the bike-rack-challenged age-grouper, I find it hard to swallow the idea that this sport––which is, after all, a sport, an avocation, a time for play––should have rules enforced by those whose job appears to be to manufacture ways to resurrect an infraction that has been successfully appealed. Perhaps we need a new rule that says you can't make up rules as you go along.

I think we all know what the benefits are to penalties. But have we considered what happens when our referees search for reasons to disqualify people? I've been involved with races in which a full 25 percent of the age-group field has been penalized. I'm trying to imagine a quarter of an age-group field seeking to take an unfair, immoral advantage in a race. Does that pass the test of reasonableness? I wonder how many of these people, in frustration, or mortification, or embarrassment, or even self-loathing, decide on another sport. How many of them felt, when they got home, that they'd spent an awful lot of time and money for what was in the end a humiliating experience? How many of these who were penalized, I wonder, were first-timers? Is the race director pleased with the work and money he's invested when dozens or hundreds of his customers are livid?

If a referee worked for me, I'd not send him or her through the transition are looking to DQ those with unplugged handlebars. I'd send them through the transition area with handlebar plugs!––and a bunch of notes that could be pinned to offenders' towels or transition bags, telling them how their disqualifying penalties were averted. If I was wandering through the transition area during the swim and found the lady's bike on a stand I didn't like, I'd have removed the stand, racked the bike, and told the lady when she exited the water she'd have to use the same rack everybody else uses, regardless of the difficulty it causes her.

No, we can't just let everybody do what they want on the course. There's no sense in having rules unless you intend to enforce them. I'm saying that in the 20 years I've been involved in triathlon––in which our sport has gone through changes of mood and direction, and there has been a lot of ebb and flow––I'm sensing that we're ebbing on this theme, and we need to wheel it back 'round, so that we better flow.