Back in the late 1980's, I was coaching at a Division II school. We were running a dual meet with another conference school and had a 1500m runner on the verge of qualifying (no provisional then). He took the lead from the gun and held it until he crossed the line. However, just before he crossed the line, he reached for his watch and punched it, inspite of the fact that we had three watches on first and all of our coaches were also timing. This change up from a sprint to the finish to punching his watch cost him .2 seconds and he lost out on qualifying by .2 seconds. Now, almost 20 years later, as he road races, he still does the same thing. We still get a kick out of that.
From: "Dan Kaplan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > But as always, there's two sides to every story... I basically didn't > know my 800m PR from my Junior year of high school until my Junior year of > college due to two separate timing mishaps. The first was during an early > season all-comers meet my Senior year of HS. I felt I ran my best race by > far, but no one got a time on me (back of the pack in a much faster than > expected race). Several people in the stands thought I finished in the > ballpark of what would have been a big PR... Frosh year of college, 1st > or 2nd meet, another screw up in the form of a 5 second timing > discrepancy. Coach had me at about what I felt I ran -- not a PR -- the > official results had me 5 seconds faster. Injured most of the track > season Sophomore year and didn't do much, then finally ran a time Junior > year that was well clear of any of the previous confusion! Rather > frustrating in hindsight. I never did take to racing with a watch, > though. > > Dan > > --- Jim Gerweck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I love it when some kid who's so inculcated by the nuances of road > > racing > > reaches to hit his watch at the end of a race, and gets beat by another > > who ran through the finish and counted on the timers to do their job. > >
