Results botched at WMG? M60 champ robbed of 5 meters
Tom Fahey, our perennial national discus champion, is a connossieur of fine track meets. He knows how things are supposed to be run. Usually that includes posting the correct results. Duh. But that didn’t happen to him at the World Masters Games. Tom sent me three photos showing that he had better distances than the 44.67 (146-6) credited him in the official results. Tom writes: “My wife took photos of the competition, which shows that I actually threw 49.67 with a second throw of 48.95. She took photos of the scoreboard and the landing site in the field that showed clearly that the mark was at the 50-meter mark– not 15 feet less.â€
Tom’s best throw was marked near near the 50-meter pylon radius.
Tom continued:
While I won the gold medal at the meet, the performance was far below my capabilities. I had a disappointing season this year due to injuries. My performances would have made up for my lousy season. I sent an email to World Masters Games officials after I saw the photos, but received no answer.
I’m sure nothing can be done about this. I traveled a long way for this competition at great expense. I expected more from a major meet.
Signboard confirmed 49.67 (162-11) for entrant No. 622 — Tom Fahey of USA.
 Here’s what the results show today:
Event 622Â Men Discus Throw 60- 64
=======================================================================
   Name                   Year Team                   Finals Points
=======================================================================
Finals                                                               Â
 1 Fahey, Tom              M62 United State           44.67m      Â
 2 Semborowski, Andrzej    M62 Poland                 42.50m      Â
 3 Hoyer, Knud             M63 Denmark                40.31m      Â
 4 Davison, Rick           M60 New Zealand            39.28m      Â
 5 D’Lecki, Michael        M60 Australia              37.17m      Â
 6 Dannenberg, Juergen     M60 Germany                36.68m      Â
 7 Nõmmik, Päivo           M60 Estonia                36.23m      Â
 8 Pervan, Paul            M60 Australia              34.17m      Â
 9 Dec, Jan                M60 Poland                 32.53m      Â
 10 Gulliver, T im          M64 Australia              27.47m      Â
 — Pereira, Felipe         M61 Brazil                   FOUL
     Â
You’d think this is easy to fix.
Just correct a typo.
The bigger question: Is this a rare flub or a common occurrence in Sydney?Â
22 Responses
Fifteen is excessive. I have video of the landing of my throws in Oshkosh and the judges were only missing by about four or five feet there.
The sign is from electronic measuring equipment. However the photo clearly shows a mark considerably shorter than 50 meters. The arc from 50 meters would be 4-5 meters behind where the men are standing.
It’s totally frustrating, but your presence was still important and set the highest standard. Your competitors know what you have done. Next year you will be healed and even surprise yourself. You do have your loyal fan base, you know!
How can you say that Mr. or Ms. anon??? There are no comparative reference points in the photo on which to base that conclusion. I could just as easily conclude that it was beyond 50 meters from what I see there.
So, exactly how have you concluded the electronic measuring equipment was faulty?
I’ve known Tom for years and he has no reason whatsoever to lie about something like that.
Nice cheap shot Mr. Anon. It’s just that you’re completely wrong.
Without knowing the position and angle from which the picture was taken, you’re just showing yourself to more than a bit ignorant.
Could you please post your name?
You too Mr. Anonymous (the first poster). I’d like to know your age group and credited throw. I watched most of the various discus events in Oshkosh and I don’t recall a controversy in regards to missed marks. It could have happened, but I would have expected to hear about it before…..
the photo does look to me to show a throw much less than 50m, arc taken into consideration.
However, we don’t know when the typo was made (or indeed, which measurement WAS the incorrect reading), in originally writing the results or when transferring them to the formal results listing. I DO know that a lot of untrained people volunteered to do this meet in their own time and , frustrating as that can be, the meet could not run without them.
There have have been other dodgy results, one being a discuss thrower in my age grouping who actually told the measurers he hadn’t thrown as far as they credited him. His appeal was overturned… just too hard to deal with I guess.
I must admit feeling a little disappointed by the excerpts from Tom’s letter above.
At 62 he should know that things in life don’t always go perfectly. How important is this alleged mistake on a world scale?
Tom, you’re being a wee bit too precious. After all, it’s a “Games”, isn’t it!
No way they are marking a 49,67m throw on that photo.I bet 44,67 is the right result and the signboard is wrong by 5m.
did Tom think to go to the TIC and query the result? It might be an easy check up of the recording sheet versus the inputted computer result?
The two pictures contain too few clues to make a point. I did some photoshopping to reconstruct the sector, and that seems to give a hint that it is more than 45 meter although I hesitate to call it 49.67. With some more pictures from the same standpoint and the same focal length it maybe is possible to get a better estimate after use of photohop and some trigonometrics.
You know, the reason a lot of “anonymous” don’t post their names is that it is pretty certain they are going to become ostracized from the track “community” or whatever you want to call it. It is a given that there are officiating mistakes going to take place because the officials are volunteers. From an athlete’s point of view though….looking through that lens for just one minute is that we spend a lot of money to go to a meet, like the nationals and our expectations are that every throw, jump and run will be called 100% accurately. That is the expectation anyways. I like to have a recording at big meets of athletes performances, for a keepsake as well as learning for the future to improve. Sometimes I will have two cameras set up for the discus. One in the ring, the other in the field and since I do not look at the video until after the competition, there is no “controversy”, nor am I attempting to cause any. Just a simple statement that the judges missed two of my throws in a row by at least four or five feet in the discus. Don’t get uptight about it, but maybe we need to find judges who can move quicker out to the point of landing and mark it? I don’t know what to suggest…don’t know why the throws were missed.
One thing that I do not understand from the track community on this blog is how riled up some people become about pointing out a mistake or a suggestion for an improvement, here or there. It seems that the first reaction is to take it personally, which most of the time is not the intent of the author. I believe that if we are respectful and thoughtful in our remarks, they should be taken as such. And not have others interject a tone of defensiveness and personal attacks, when they were not even witness to the events! Common sense.
Amen
There are four (other than the superweights and refrigerator tossing) main throwing events – javelin, shot put, discus and hammer. Outdoors, there should be no real controversy about where a hammer, shot put or javelin (if it sticks) lands. There is something fundamentally wrong with the discus, however.
Years ago, at University of Washington meets, I used to go over to the discus competition to shag discuses and get some practice by throwing throwing them back in near the ring. Occasionally, because I was the closest to where a discus “landed” I would mark. Well, I would try to mark. Usually a discus would land flat and then skid. You ran over to where you think it landed, look at the grass, and have no indication of where it actually landed, so you plop your foot down in the general vicinity and wait for the tape. After one of my foot plopping marks, over came the tape for what was measured to be a new women’s American record for the discus.
I’ve also “marked” at all-comers meets (which are really no different from world/national meets, as anyone can pay to play). Unless you are very lucky to have the discus drop at your feet, you can be 20 feet or more from where the discus actually lands. Good luck with marking that, especially if a few centimeters separates the top three.
It shouldn’t take a MacArthur grant to figure out a better way of measuring a discus throw.
* Replace the discus sector with sand. Rake after each throw, or
* For grass, line out a one meter grid pattern on the discus sector to reduce the margin of error, or
* Mount a video camera with a view of the discus sector to view an instant replay of the landing, or
* Assign a crew of 10 human markers equally spaced in the discus sector (agile and alert!) with two needing to agree on a discus landing, or
* A high tech option that would embed a GPS chip in the middle of the discus that would provide a point at which the discus stops losing altitude.
By the way, the same nonsense happens in the indoor shotput, where you are lucky if your result is within a foot of the actual mark. Sigh!
I agree with your assessments on both the disc and the shot. I wonder how tennis officials, before today’s high tech cameras, got so good at seeing 120 mph little balls whizzing into the corners of the tennis court. Regarding being a discus marking official and indoor shot, there is a wee amount of athleticism involved in noting the arc and angle of the throw and then moving nearer toward the anticipated projected outcome. Like catching a flyball….only you don’t need to catch it. But a good official can predict with close precision about where it will land. I have marked throws, too. So that’s how I do it.
Discus is awful…
Indoor shot, we use rubber implements and make the wet. No discussion.
Here is a shot of photo I didn’t post:
http://www.masterstrack.com/photos/2009/4895.jpg
Signboard shows mark of 48.95 meters.
This lends credence to Tom having thrown 49.67.
I’ve written to Tom for further information. He may be on flight home.
Unfortunately this happens at all the levels from Youth to Masters it happen to my daughter at USATF Junior Olylmpics in the Long Jump.An illegal jump was not only marked an additional 5 feet,pictures show she actually scratched all of her jumps.This jump became a new National record.
My daughter had to settle for silver when gold was truly hers. that would have given her 3 gold medals which was her goal going to the JO’s this year. The officials were simply not paying attention. It was a big deal(because in part I made it one) and now it is said it will be reversed and awarded to my daughter, time will tell at the USATF Convention.
Sorry about Your Misfortune,
TrackMom (wanna be a Masters Track Mom too!)
I didn’t know about the mistake until my wife showed me the photos after the meet. What was upsetting was that the officials made mistakes on two of my throws (49.67 and 48.95). They were measured correctly and displayed automatically on the results sign but transferred incorrectly to the official sheet. What’s worse was that the woman who recorded the mark also announced it at the circle to the athletes.
My two best throws felt very good. After the woman announced the throw, I thought I had developed a neurological disease. I threw 57 meters two years ago and over 54 meters in several meets last year. I had a serious injury for most of this season but have been recovering lately and throwing better.
As for several of the negative comments: I won the gold medal, but that’s not what’s important. Nobody cares how far some fat old guy threw the discus, but I care. I train 12 months a year and have a passion for the sport. I love this sport because it forces me to put myself to the test. My performances mirror my preparation and hard work. When I perform poorly, I reevaluate my training and make changes. This is not possible when the officials make significant errors. This shouldn’t happen at a major championship.
I officiate at local high school meets and know how difficult and time consumming it can be. I appreciate the hard work of the officials. The late Lad Pataki quit track and field because of officiating mistakes. I’m not going to do that. I will train harder this year and will be back! I have 100 years of eligibility left!
I’ve got the original pictures from Ken, but it is not easy to measure them. A little bit distortion in the lens (as is nearly alwys the case), the sector lines not straight, the discus ring outside the picture, on one picture 5m-markings but on the other none. But I think about it tomorrow, how to find all vanishing points with enough precision to be able to prove that 49m is closer to the truth than 44.
Ha, ha, ha, ha. Now Tom can follow his own advice to others in misfortune: “let it go and have fun.”
To Anthony,
I have let it go. I enjoyed the meet at Sydney and will throw again in Italy in 4-years (even if they screw up my mark).
I know that I acheived my best mark of the year, and that’s all that matters.
Anthony – you have a point, but for some reason you come off as (what we call on this side of the pond)quite a d-bag.
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