Cutoff Enforcement Question
Had a friend who just finished. She said there was a huge dispute with multiple athletes over the bike cutoff being arbitrarily early and ruining a few races. She started at 7:27 AM because it was wet suit optional, race directors held the entire wetsuit group longer than even back of the pack telling them wait, and after making making the swim cutoff and getting to the bike finish at 5:55 PM she found out that a single volunteer had been holding people since 5:50 saying that they missed the cutoff. For context, the run cutoff was 12:30. They took her tracker and when speaking to another director they told her to just make the run cutoff because the coordinator wasn’t correct but obviously she didn’t have the leisure of time to argue it. When she finished, another director told her they had no idea what was going on.
Aren’t cutoffs supposed to be set by the last person to get in the water. I’ve heard conflicting reports that the cutoffs were predetermined before the race and that the speeches ran too long, but also I’ve heard that cutoffs can be set by the last non-wetsuit swimmer due to it being wetsuit optional. If these cutoffs are a gray area, does it just make sense to start at the front every time if you think you’re gonna be cutting it close.