Disqualified for speeding in a triathlon? I’d be so lucky

I note with interest that Aussie elite triathlete Cam Wurf was recently disqualified from a triathlon for going too fast. Like most age-groupers reading that my immediate thought was “chance would be a fine thing”.

Most of us are more concerned with being disqualified for going too slowly. In fairness despite my best efforts I have yet to be DQ’D for not being fast enough, although I remember knowing how it feels during the Superman Triathlon in Flanders, Belgium, after cycling cross-eyed with effort into a headwind to stay ahead of the broom wagon down a succession of flat, narrow lanes.

I’ve never forgotten the feeling of doom as the van finally had enough room to overtake me only then to discover it was actually a support van for a para triathletes and I had been stopping them from getting past to reach them. 

Being disqualified has actually happened to my friend Tony, who was within 500 metres of a race in Almere in the Netherlands when the cut-off time ticked over and they booted him off the course rather than let him cross the line (I’d like to think we were sympathetic to him but we were too busy laughing). 

Breaking the limit

Anyway, back to Cam Wurf, who fell foul of the commissaires at the Oceanside 70.3 in California, and it seems this is a regular thing at the race because there’s one section of the course where there is a speed limit.

Poor old Cam was about a minute down after the speed but, as befits a former pro cyclist with Ineos Grenadiers, was making up time on the bike when he was clobbered by a speed trap, after which it was a red card and an early bath for him.

By all accounts he’s by no means the first to be done for speeding at this spot on the course, with Jenson Button being another high-profile victim, although in his case I’m tempted to say “what do you expect?”. 

I’ve yet to discover whether Wurf’s punishment was a £100 fine and three points on his UCI licence, or a three-hour training course on stopping distances and being able to tell the speed limit from the presence of lamp posts, in a room full of surly middle-aged sales reps (yes, I have recently had to do the speed awareness course, okay!). 

I have done a few triathlons where there have been speed limits as we go through villages etc but to be honest they have never troubled me because I look upon 30mph as some kind of mystical target speed that I will never achieve rather than something that would ever involve me applying my brakes. 

Even in Wales where 20mph limits are now in place it has never affected me because, being Wales, the village in question is always at the top of a massive hill. To be honest I’d consider it a win if my speed got up into double figures.

I completely get why some races may need to have speed limits for safety reasons though, especially when passing through villages or places shared with pedestrians etc and, being responsible adults and representatives of a sport we love and want to encourage others to love too, we should of course obey them. 

Speeding is not cool whether we’re on a bike, in a car or, for example, in a van and being done by a mobile speed camera because you were distracted by listening to loud punk music. 

Kristian’s slow change

One final thing while we’re talking about the Oceanside 70.3 race though, is that from the race report I saw that apparently Kristian Blummenfelt lost almost 15 minutes on the bike after getting a puncture.

Now, I don’t wish to get all cocky with a former Olympic champion, but 15 minutes to change a tube is a frankly shocking performance, and is the kind of thing that would earn widespread derision from the other cyclists on any cycling club ride. Work to do Kristian, old son, work to do…