The day before ….

August 14th, 2009 by Gavin

In 24hrs I’ll be rolling past Harrods aboard my Specialized Tarmac SL2 on route to T1 - I will leave extra early this time to make sure I arrive on time . . . . we left our hotel yesterday at 4pm and it took an hour in traffic to get to the race hotel where the athlete briefing was being held. After paying ‘bullet tooth Tony’ we went in and down the stairs to the sign in sheet - it was now 5.04pm - 4mins too late for one ITU official who had a face on him like a bull dog chewing a wasp - “you are late, you will be docked 10 positions on the pontoon”. I had forgotten what is was like to be at school and treated like a child. A little respect would be nice, if it was not for the athletes travelling around the world there would be no race.

With the briefing over we were given a talk on ADAMS - an international drugs wehreabouts system - we were informed that not everyone is on a drugs register and that if your federation does not carry out random testing you can take it upon yourself to voluntarily sign up to - OR NOT.

It dawned on me then that you get a penalty before the race for being 4mins late to the briefing but no penalty for not publicising your whereabouts to drug testers . . . . . ????

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