Is it OK to bypass the Call Room?

[Anthony Treacher]

At the 2006 WMA Linz World Masters Indoors, a member of the GBR M65 4x200m relay failed to turn up at the Call Room in time. The Call Room accepted his replacement, checked names, national uniform clothing, number bibs, spikes etc., whereupon the relay team formally passed through the Call Room and entered onto the competition area.

The final Call Room Start List thus contained the names of the four checked-in relay team members, not the athlete who failed to turn up at the Call Room in time.

The BMAF GBR Team Manager then entered the competition area with the missing athlete and tried to substitute him back into the relay team.

Is it OK to bypass the Call Room in this way?

[d pickup]

Is it OK to bypass the Call Room in this way?

Anthony

You, I am sure, have at your finger tips the details of this occurance so you will appropriately order and expand on/contract the 12 questions I ask here, notwithstanding that perhaps somewhere here in AW many of/all of the details are available, if you indeed feel urged to respond.

1 Are there any grey areas in the rules on this matter that would give room for the Team Manager to argue his case?

2 Were there 'compassionate' reasons why the 'missing' athlete was not available at the 'correct' time?

3 What was the immediate reaction of each of the 4 'on time' athletes to the appearance of the Team Manager with the 'late' athlete?

4 What did the 'late' athlete have to say to the other 4?

5 Who ran?: the 'late' athlete or the 'replacement' athlete?

6 Did other teams see/later learn of this this matter and have any comment eg 'the GBR team should have been disqualified' - if indeed the rules were broken.

7 Did anything happen subsequently?

8 Are there procedures in place to deal with such 'problems'?

9 What is the current state of play?

10 On subsequent reflection what has that Team Manager said about the 'initiative' he showed on the day?

11 On subsequent reflection what has each of the athletes had to say about what happened on that day?

12 Is there a case for adding to / changing the rules?

[Anthony Treacher]

David, thanks. But so many questions just cloud the issue. I will answer this one for now:

5. Who ran? The ‘late’ athlete or the ‘replacement’ athlete?

The ‘replacement’ athlete ran. He was Eric Horwill, BMAF Committee member and Assistant BMAF Team Manager. Eric Horwill was the legal substitute previously written into the relay list. On the absence of the missing runner Horwill kindly volunteered. The Call Room accepted Horwill and Howill’s name was on the final Call Room Start List, not the ‘late’ athlete.

Incidentally, when I heard nothing from BMAF and expecting a BMAF apology I talked on the phone later with Horwill and said:

“You were the legal substitute at Linz. You can verify everything I say.”

“Yes,” said Horwill, “But you must understand I am in a difficult position.”

Horwill’s “difficult position” being that he was a BMAF Committee member and the BMAF Secretary (without informing me) had forbidden BMAF members to discuss the matter with me.

Your other questions are best answered by the BMAF GBR Team Manager’s aside to me:

“The team will do better with John running. Take a chance on nobody noticing. I will cover for you.”

My question remains: Is it OK to bypass the Call Room in this way?

[flashcoach]

Of course not, but people being what they are you have to put up with it, ignore it, or become obsessed with it for ever!

I suggest replacing this incident mentally with healthier thoughts which will help your performnces improve.

Just a kind thought for you Anthony

[Anthony Treacher]

Flashcoach, great!

Glad you posted.

[fangio]

Wow, 5 years on and suddenly we have a new aside the Team Manager is meant to have said which has never been mentioned before.

Anthony, you need to move on. You had yor day (well more than one day) incourt and you lost. What you are hoping to achieve by posting up new comments that the Team Manager is supposed to have made 5 years after he is supposed to have made them I do not know.

As flash says you need to get over it and focus on healthier thoughts.

[d pickup]

“The team will do better with John running. Take a chance on nobody noticing. I will cover for you.”

My question remains: Is it OK to bypass the Call Room in this way?

Anthony (and enjoy the 'humour' of the Golding quote below)
- Morally not the right way to go
- Cover-up activity has a nasty way of returning to haunt those who indulge in it
- Cheats should never prosper in my book

"'We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything.'"
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 2

[Anthony Treacher]

Not just five years on. This spike is due to new information

25 November 2010 BMAF sent me the contents of minutes of the BMAF 5 November 2006 and 7 March 2007 meetings, under a subject access request. I was really disgusted to learn that:

1. Unknown to me, BMAF Team Manager Maurice Doogan had told the BMAF delegates in camera a complete cock-and-bull story that he had problems and disputes with me prior to Linz. BMAF Chairman Winston Thomas and the BMAF delegates unquestioning accepted my chum Doogan’s version as explaining and exonerating his conduct at Linz. And I now understand that these lies (of which I knew nothing until now and have had no chance of answering) must have decisively influenced my suspension and poisoned all my subsequent relations with BMAF Committee members, WMA officers and even my fellow BMAF athletes.
2. BMAF Chairman Winston Thomas wrongly told BMAF delegates that Doogan had not broken any IAAF rule at Linz (see below).
3. BMAF Chairman Winston Thomas falsely told the BMAF delegates that I refused to meet him.
4. The meeting minutes disingenuously refer to several matters that had not even happened by the time of the meeting 5 November 2006. The chronology is impossible. The minutes, which the subsequent 7 March 2007 BMAF meeting approved to ‘ratify’ my suspension, were therefore false – completely unsound in every way.

I did notice that the 7 March 2007 BMAF minutes implied a right of appeal to UKA:

WT (BMAF Chairman Winston Thomas) had to contact UKA re Anthony Treacher when the situation became very unsavoury as Treacher sent emails to everyone he could reach criticizing WMA and BMAF members. Following communication from the Executive, Treacher has now been banned for 12 months subject to any complaints from WMA and IAAF, and any appeal he may make to UKA. It was agreed that there would be no further contact with him on the subject of his suspension. (my underlining).

21 December 2010 I accordingly appealed to UKA asking UKA ‘to provide a formal ruling to BMAF as to whether the minutes of the 5 November 2006 BMAF Delegates Meeting were Sound or Unsound as grounds for consequent disciplinary measures against me.’

25 March 2011 UKA’s response – despite the 7 March 2007 BMAF minutes’ reference to any appeal he may make to UKA - was:

Dear Mr Treacher,

Re: Complaint against the Minutes of the 5 November 2006 BMAF Delegates Meeting
I write further to our recent exchange of correspondence regarding the above matter.
I have now spoken to UK Athletics’ legal adviser regarding the issue of UKA’s jurisdiction in respect of your complaint against the BMAF. They have confirmed that since the BMAF is a separate governing body for masters athletes and is no subject to UKA’s jurisdiction, UKA does not have jurisdiction in this matter.

So - after the now customary official gestation period of three wasted months -another sincere effort to solve this dispute offline came to nothing. The political incompetence of British athletics officers, the sloth and indifference to the truth is incredible. No wonder this business has gone on for 5 years.

Back to topic “Is it OK to bypass the Call Room?”

fangio. Don’t be silly. You know full well that the court case concerned my 2008 claim against the BMAF for distress from that notice in Spring 2007 BMAF Masters Athletics Magazine. My 2006 complaint about the BMAF Team Manager breaking the IAAF rules and verbally abusing me has never had its day in court – that is the entire problem. The minutes of the 5 November 2006 BMAF meeting now show that BMAF Chairman Winston Thomas conveniently hid the complaint against his BMAF Team Manager under the rug:

vi. WT (BMAF Chairman/WMA Secretary Winston Thomas) spoken with EH (fellow relay team member Eric Horwill) and the chairman of the SCVAC Arthur Kimber. Treacher said that MD (BMAF Team Manager Maurice Doogan) had broken an IAAF rule. WT had checked it out, this is not so.

But it is so. IAAF 170.18 (see later) mainly applies but incidentally other IAAF rules, for instance:

IAAF 138 Call Room Judges. “The Call Room Chief Judge shall supervise the transit between the warmup area and the competition area to ensure that the athletes after being checked in the Call Room, be present and ready at the competition site for the scheduled start of their event.

British Team Manager Maurice Doogan was not authorized to supervise the transit of an athlete between the Call Room and the competition area.

IAAF 144 Assistance to Athletes talks about the competition area, which “normally also has a physical barrier, is defined for this purpose as the area where the competition is being staged and which has an access restricted to the competing athletes and to personnel authorised in accordance with the relevant Rules and Regulations.”

British Team Manager Maurice Doogan and his GBR athlete were not authorized to access the competition area. Anyway, the main applicable rule is IAAF 170.18:

IAAF 170.18 The composition of a team and the order of running for a relay shall be officially declared no later than one hour before the published first call time for the first heat of each round of the competition. Further alterations must be verified by a medical officer appointed by the Organising Committee and may be made only until the final call time for the particular heat in which the team is competing. If a team does not follow this Rule, it shall be disqualified. (My underlining).

BMAF Team Manager Maurice Doogan attempted to alter the team after final call time. BMAF Chairman/WMA Secretary Winston Thomas was therefore entirely wrong about the application of the IAAF rules to the Linz incident. That also means that my complaint against BMAF Team Manager Maurice Doogan was fully justified and that the BMAF delegates should have taken it seriously.

The truth will out.

[flashcoach]

"The truth will out."

When it does Anthony will anything be done about it?

[Anthony Treacher]

The truth is out. And UKA will eventually do something about it.

“Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke, roughly)

“When good men do nothing they condone evil.” (Anthony Treacher)

[d pickup]

The truth is out. And UKA will eventually do something about it.

“Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke, roughly)

“When good men do nothing they condone evil.” (Anthony Treacher)

Anthony

It can be interesting to browse through a list of quotes; you won't perhaps totally enjoy all these:

Often an entire city has suffered because of an evil man.
Hesiod (~800 BC), Works and Days

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881)

Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.
King Edward the Third (1312 - 1377), Motto of the order of the Garter

The end excuses any evil.
Sophocles (496 BC - 406 BC), Electra (c.409 BC)

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919), 'The Strenuous Life,' 1900

The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.
Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982), Atlas Shrugged, 1957

The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 1966

[Anthony Treacher]

David. Your belletristic penchant is queering my pitch. Are you still on my side? Please re-submit your membership of the Anthony Treacher Fan Club

[d pickup]

David. Your belletristic penchant is queering my pitch. Are you still on my side? Please re-submit your membership of the Anthony Treacher Fan Club

Anthony
'Bellatristic'? Encarta dictionary didn't have 'belletristic'; had to use OED - and *ristic gives 75 words with such an ending; what poetic potential.

Anthony, Anthony, I'm happy to be President, even just the Minutes Secretary, of your fan club for life!

[d pickup]

David. Your belletristic penchant is queering my pitch.

'Your belletristic penchant is queering my pitch'
to AT
This man had a pitch, kept exact records, doubtless diaristic
Then along came another, somewhat poetic and bellatristic
their relationship aoristic
but both doubtless valued the veristic
need to be not necessarily empiristic, but rigoristic & philosophico-juristic.

dp10apr11

Some opposition
There was opposition to this man who was shall we say puristic
but at times it was the problem of defining matters, being dioristic
opposition non-humoristic
at times too formularistic
so hence any views aphoristic, and folkloristic, and allow views poly-characteristic.

dp 10apr11

[Anthony Treacher]

fangio, the British Team Manager´s:

The team will do better with John running. Take a chance on nobody noticing. I will cover for you.

is British masters athletics realpolitik. No problem. Move on.

[Anthony Treacher]

Realpolitik? Well it’s not for nice people.

A theory of politics that focuses on considerations of power, not ideals, morals or principles.

[Anthony Treacher]

Unless it recants, the British Masters Athletics Association (BMAF) will always be known for deliberately taking an athlete past the Call Room in defiance of the IAAF rules.

[fangio]

More like, no matter what you do from now on you will always be known for an insignificant situation which you first exacerbated then spent years insulting BMAF Officers over in public. You had your day in court, in front of an independent judge, you lost, yet you still think you are right and continue to bring up this completely pointless argument over and over again. Get over it now, you are not getting any younger, and I doubt anyone in the world is interested anymore, it just makes you look obsessive and vindictive to carry on as you have. In the kindest possible way Anthony, it's time to let it go or keep it to yourself.

[Anthony Treacher]

It's the minion fangio,
defender of the athletics status quo.

[Anthony Treacher]

(Although of course the British Masters Athletics Federation (BMAF) will be best known for banning the complaining athlete without any hearing or appeal.)

[d pickup]

What an affair!

Hopefully nobody will want to bypass the Call Room at the 2012 London Olympics! (eg the transport provision strained to beyond reasonable limits ..).