Posting anonymously here for obvious reasons. Curious the collective's thoughts pertaining to a situation I am privy to for reasons I'm not going to share. I'm keeping details to a minimum, but lets assume you or someone close to you caught a known pro cheating. In this case, this professional cyclist missed a course markings in a cross country event, got temporarily lost, then decided to take a shortcut to find their way back to the course (did not ride a portion of the course) and won the event. This person took the prize money, the clout and put a first place on their resume, but never alerted the competition or the race promoter they did this. This person does have a substantial number of sponsors and is fairly well regarded in the cycling community.
I want to be clear, there is no ambiguity here. The person 100% got lost, cut the course, won the event and did not alert anyone to this occurrence. Supposedly, the person has admitted this in full to the person who caught then but feels it overall did not give them an advantage in the race so it was never reported.
Curious everyone's thoughts here. Do you let karma play its part or do you be a Karen and call the person out publicly.
Why is there no option about notifying the race commissioner in your poll?
Assuming it's a small regional race? Contact the race officials with you info, let them confront the racer.
Didn’t this happen at unbound last year with some douchey Florida influencer cyclist? Except I think he had a mechanical, caught a ride to the returning portion of the loop and pedaled in as if he was a finisher (not a winner). He posted and took congratulations from everyone until he got called out. Then he played it off that he never tried to act like he was a finisher and deleted all his posts about it. People had screenshotted him and continued to post and make fun of him.
100% I would talk to the race promoter or commissioner. They're the one in charge of the race, let them figure all that crap out. Besides, this is the person the athlete should have reported things to in the first place. I wouldn't flame the athlete publicly right now, because the race organizer might end up doing that for you. Maybe if you report it and nothing happens, you can flame them later.
That's a tough situation to be in. Not envious.
I say scorched earth! I've heard stories of course cutting (deliberate) from the pro EDR circuit and also national races that make me sick...
never forget, hb cut the course in 1990
This 100%
Definitely worth discussing with the organizers, as factually as possible, to avoid over or under exaggerating the situation.
Was at 2017 EWS Whistler and my friends and I watched a sizeable number riders blow a left turn on afternoon delight then cut the course a bit while rejoining. Jesse Melamed was the only rider who blew the corner then grabbed the bike and hiked to rejoin where he left the course. However, Jesse ended up winning the race and solved our dilemma for us. We were planning to go to the commissioners about the others but a) looked and none those guilty actually received a time-advantage which would change the results sheet and, b) we didn't think that there was sufficient proof to cause multiple top 10 riders DQs, though maybe it'd be easier for the commissioners to make such a decision because there were many witnesses (at least 3 of us, and a few more other groups were willing to go as well until we all looked at the results).
Looking back, I'm always curious if it was the right call since natural order was undisturbed, or the wrong call because had we gone to race officials it creates pressure (even without a penalty) for riders to follow the rules rather than push them.
Sounds like someone who is a known professional, and likely making a living off of riding their bike, has now pushed every other racer one place back. Might not be an issue, but also might be harming results of riders who are also trying to make a living off of this results-based sport.
Can't hurt to discuss with the race organizers in the most objective way possible. Then it's not on your conscious anymore, because making a poll asking for everyone else's opinion means it definitely is weighing on you.
Same happened to Jack Moir at Loudenvielle last year on the final special. The time it took him to get back up and on track was pretty much the winning margin.
One thing we do know is that both him and Jesse are the people we need at the pinnacle of sport.
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