Question about race awards

It is an RD based thing as to what most races will do.  The rules from USAT pertain to money and if the race has a purse of over $4,999.99 cash (total) then AGers are not eligible to win the money, only professionals (and not even elites ..... you need to hold a pro card if I remember correctly).

But I have not heard of someone not being declared the overall winner when they posted the fastest time.  That is strange.

If the member of trigator wants to be able to claim overall prices then he should race in the elite/pro wave.

I understand the cash purse over $5000 for the pro catergory.  In the sprint there was nothing given out prize wise, so it wasn't a big deal.  The elite who won actually gave him the placque for the overall award.  In the Olympic there was a $100 gift certificate to a running store.  The Olympic had no pro/elite catergory, just wouldn't give it to him because he raced as a colleigete.

But if you have the fastest overall time you should be recognized as the overall winner.

NCAA rules prohibit prizes to maintain your collegiate status ...... maybe they were just trying to enforce that???  But then again, triathlon is usually a club sport as opposed to track and x-country which are scholarship sports.

Yeah, it still sounds bogus though.

No, we are just a club team so no NCAA oversite.  However we had a swimmer and a x-country girl here that did Tris and had to be careful about what they accepted if they won.

- There are no NCAA violations here because triathlon is a club sport on the college level, and it does not fall under the umbrella of the NCAA or the rules regulated by that association.

- The prize pool was medals, plaques, and a few gift certificates to a local store.  So even if there were rules to be broken or USAT regulations to follow, no cash prizes were handed out for the pro level.

- I've been to a few races where they have "collegiate" waves included with the regular athletes.  Because they registered as something other than a normal AGer that should have given you the first red flag as to how awards may be handed out.

My two cents goes back to my original remark.  College triathlon clubs are pushing hard to become NCAA recognized and I think the USAT sees this.  Thus, in order to prevent future problems with prizes for OA winners being "college athletes" they have gone ahead and created a seperate registry for the college tri team members.  I know you all have some sort of "points" system with all of the college tri clubs, but in the future if your teammates are worried about prizes just decide whether or not they should sign up under the collegiate level or AG level.  Until the NCAA picks up Triathletes, they are free to register or even go pro in order to win prizes.

for the college club team there may be some thought that the person competing in the collegiate wave may also have some team dynamics that could affect their time.  Wether that is in pacing, drafting etc. that would give them an unfair advantage over others that are there by themselves. 

I'm not saying that occured, but it is likely that the RD takes those things into account.

Did the RD make this stuff up on the fly are did they spell out how the OA winners were to be determined? 

That would make a difference to me.  If the latter, its like complaining that the RD wouldn't give someone a refund even though no refunds are clearly stated in the race documents.

Never happen ....... there is not a lot of money in the sport, and some of the "local" pros that just go to smaller races to make some money wouldn't participate as much since a lot of them would still get schooled by AG people and lose out on prize money.  That is part of the reasoning for the USAT rule.

I stand corrected.  I thought amateurs had the choice after the final round to declare themselves as a pro and collect the money.   That is not the case, after searching about it.  They still get to call themselves US Open Champion though, if they win it fair and square.

I think this is the biggest problem.  The RD did not and RD's usually do not spell out how awards are going to be handed out in advance.  And while the 2nd race did have a gift certificate, the 1st race had nothing of cash value and at neither race was he recognized as the overall winner. 

While the US Open is a great example, ametuars know in advance they cannot take home money, but are still recognized if they win.