USAT Election Results
from
BJ Hoeptner /USA Triathlon
on
November 4, 2002
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Nov. 4, 2002) - With the 2002 election completed, two incumbents will be keeping their seats on the USA Triathlon Board of Directors, USA Triathlon announced Monday.
In the East Region, incumbent Fred Sommer (Clermont, Fla.) defeated Rob Vigorito (Columbia, Md.) and Alisa Wright Colopy (Cary, N.C.) to maintain his seat on the Board. In the West Region, incumbent Tim Becker (Seattle, Wash.) beat out former Board member Sharron Ackles (Kona, Hawaii) to maintain his seat. Board president Ray Plotecia (Baltimore, Md.) ran unopposed for his at-large seat as did Brad Davison (Austin, Texas) in the Central Region.
Less than 1,000 ballots were received from a membership of more than 38,000. Voter turnout was low due to the lack of candidates, USA Triathlon election officials said. The pro/elite athletes will elect their representatives later this year.
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USAT Election Results
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Anonymous post on November 5, 2002
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Tell USAT the reason voter turnout was low and no one ran is because regional and board membership is a sham. Local regions have no say in anything except you must agree with what Steve Locke and Tim Yount tell you to do. Take it from someone who used to be involved.
If it wasn't because USAT provides insurance for events there would be very few races using USAT sanctioning.
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by tziebart on November 8, 2002
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I'm sure the staff at USA Triathlon would love to work with you and address your concerns. They are a very dedicated group of people. Of course you will have to let them know who you are since your constructive comments were posted from anonymous. I have served on the USAT board of directors and have produced over 100 USAT sanctioned events. Each time I had a challenge with USAT, we work it out through communication. Good luck with planning your events next year. Would love to have you come down for the USA Triathlon Race Directors Conference in January. Information can be found at the USA Triathlon web-site. Z
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by outback on November 10, 2002
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Tom
Everytime with USAT it has been - you MUST go by all of our rules or you cannot sanction/ use our insurance. There is no consideration at all that the race director at our events knows more about the area, athletes, community and police and has more experience in producing quality events than some voice on a telephone or some athlete on the local board who THINKS they know how to organize an event. We've tried to work with them but it's my way or the highway. Maybe that is why there are more than just a few events that are looking hard for other insurance alternative. Maybe USAT needs to change.
Bob
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Anonymous post on November 10, 2002
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You've served on the board and produced USAT sanctioned events. Any of them awarded championship status during that time? No conflict of interest there.
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by duathlon on November 14, 2002
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Whether you agree with him or not, Tom was the only person on this discussion that used his name. Why all the anonymous posts? If you have important comments to make, backed up with good information, you should feel comfortable posting with your name.
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Anonymous post on November 14, 2002
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Of course, Tom's a USAT backer, as is Eric. Bash USAT and you get chewed up on the boards. Make it simple and don't allow anomy. posts or screen names or just say if you disagree with USAT you can't post. Eric, this isn't the first time you stopped posts that disagree with USAT's attempted monopolistic rule of the sport. With a new source of insurance for events this year, there already has been an exodus of USAT sanctioned races here in NJ because they can get good insurance w/o having to deal the USAT garbage.
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Anonymous post on November 14, 2002
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Do you really think you sway people with your negative comments? We all know you complainers are just a bunch of losers. If USAT is so bad why did membership go up to over 40k??? And why are so many of the best races in the country USAT sanctioned? Dannon, Powerman, Danskin, all TriCal events, TriAmerica, Ironman, etc, etc?? Join the winning team, you will never be able to beat a non-profit membership organization!!
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by duathlon on November 14, 2002
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I think you need to go back and re-read my comments. I didn't support Tom or USAT. Nor did I delete or prevent anybody from posting. Your comment is incorrect on both of those counts. All I said is, if you have something good to say you shouldn't be afraid to use your name. It's easy to bash Tom or USAT anonymously, but apparently it's not so easy to do that AND use your name.
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by tziebart on November 14, 2002
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sorry, I have not returned a comment, I was at Ironman Florida and was not able to follow the discussion. To answer the question from someone about races that I helped produce being designated championships - the answer is - yes, USAT did award ESM the Sprint National Championship when I was working for ESM and No - USAT did not give ESM the National Age-Group Championship when we applied for it in the early 90's (Chicage was awarded the championship) Since leaving ESM, I have been involved with each of the USAT National Championships that have been owned by USAT.
USAT has a very fair system of awarding races with championships. The championship committee consists of age-group athletes and race directors. I'm sure the Tim Yount is always looking for people to serve on this committee, so feel free to volunteer.
I would also again invite you down to the USAT National Training Center for the USAT Race Directors Conference in January. I'm sure that you will be able to discuss all of your concerns - person to person - with USAT staff.
Even if you are a Race Director who does not sanction with USAT, you are more than welcome to participate. Please e-mail me at tomziebart@aol.com for an application and agenda. Z
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by concavity on November 16, 2002
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I'm assuming that the reason many of these races sanction with USAT is for the same reasons that we had to sanction our race with USAT.
1. We needed insurance and USAT was the only choice. No other source of event insurance was available.
2. We wanted the pros in our area to participate in our triathlon and we were told point blank that if we did not sanction that they could not and would not participate. Take that for whatever you want.
Many athletes join up with USAT because they believe that they have to. I was one of them. All the literature and comments I have read from USAT tell you that in order to race you must join USAT. Also how many of that 40K are one day licenses.
The insurance was appreciated, but what wasn't the all the extra work that being involved with USAT created for us.
We have requested information about the insurance that Triatlantic is offering this year. With Harbour Insurance not being around at least now their might be an option. They have organized non-USAT races for many years, many of which I have participated in and they always have been of quality.
Tom, I would love to come to the conference. Where can I pick up my plane ticket and hotel reservation?? :-)
Thanks for the ear.
Ron Harrison
Clinton, NJ
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by tziebart on November 16, 2002
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Ron - The 40,000 number you mention is annual members of USAT - USAT one-day members this year was about 50,000 - I'm sure that some one-day athletes bought annual membership after finding out the benefits of annual membership - #1 - a $25.00 gift certificate from Sports Basement and #2 - a $150 bike voucher on United Airlines - Even is you did not use the bike voucher - annual members got their $25.00 fee back with the gift certificate. Also included with the annual membership is the newletter - 6 issues - and a national ranking system. I've been told by USA cycling members that our annual membership is less expensive and of more value. USAT is working on continuing both the Sports Basement program and the bike voucher program for next year - the sports basement looks good - the bike voucher is going to be tough, since United is close to broke.
Most of the 150 race directors that will attend the conference, put money aside in their race budgets for travel and event improvement. I'm sure that you will be able to take something you learn at the conference back to improve your race. We will focus on safety and risk management at this year's conference. We have a number of good speakers and topics - well worth the flight, hotel and registration fee. Z
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by tziebart on November 16, 2002
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Ron - The 40,000 number you mention is annual members of USAT - USAT one-day members this year was about 50,000 - I'm sure that some one-day athletes bought annual membership after finding out the benefits of annual membership - #1 - a $25.00 gift certificate from Sports Basement and #2 - a $150 bike voucher on United Airlines - Even is you did not use the bike voucher - annual members got their $25.00 fee back with the gift certificate. Also included with the annual membership is the newletter - 6 issues - and a national ranking system. I've been told by USA cycling members that our annual membership is less expensive and of more value. USAT is working on continuing both the Sports Basement program and the bike voucher program for next year - the sports basement looks good - the bike voucher is going to be tough, since United is close to broke.
Most of the 150 race directors that will attend the conference, put money aside in their race budgets for travel and event improvement. I'm sure that you will be able to take something you learn at the conference back to improve your race. We will focus on safety and risk management at this year's conference. We have a number of good speakers and topics - well worth the flight, hotel and registration fee. Z
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by outback on November 16, 2002
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Who are these race directors that are going? I'd prefer to give my money to the race directors who puts the money back into the race or contributes that money to local charitable groups that allow us to use their towns and roads for the race, instead of the ones that use the money to travel to conferences in Florida.
Plus if these race directors need to go to a conference to learn about safety on a bike or swim course, then they shouldn't be organizing races anyway.
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Anonymous post on November 16, 2002
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This is a fun thread, Tom, anonymous, outback and everyone else. Sort of sounds like what a lot of age groupers complain about - they question USA-T and USA-T doesn't answer the question, just gives a lot of political bs. Sounds like these guys have some concerns and have had some runins with local USA-T and are just looking for some real feedback= not blabber.
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