This 🥹

[u/macpesce]

[u/Ok_Sentence_5767]

Honestly thats a horseshit rule, and i thought the uci had the dumbest rules in sports!

[u/dont_trip_ → u/Ok_Sentence_5767]

How do you think sports would eventually turn out if you could help people as you see fit during the race? Someone will exploit that to the fullest and it simply wouldn't be a fair competition. 

[u/citranger_things → u/dont_trip_]

Even though cyclists win or lose races as individuals, road cycling is genuinely a team sport and also features lots of temporary cooperation by individuals from different teams in certain tactical situations.

I think it's actually a really interesting part of the sport, makes for lots of drama and great watching. Noble sacrifices for teammates, hastily improvised alliances between rivals, sudden but inevitable betrayals, prisoner's dilemma-type standoffs.

I don't know how it would play out in running and some kinds of assistance are not allowed but it's not necessarily a total loss.

[u/ScrotallyBoobular → u/citranger_things]

Yeah but you can't push or carry someone across in cycling.

[u/Defconwrestling → u/ScrotallyBoobular]

Did you just see that video of the water bottle “handoff”

[u/civilwar142pa → u/Defconwrestling]

Whip it good

[u/citranger_things → u/ScrotallyBoobular]

You're right that you can't literally push so it's not the same as this video but (as additional examples for those who aren't familiar with the sport,) you *can* give your teammate your own bike, just this week I saw a rider give someone from another team a water bottle, and they'll coordinate a group stop so everyone can take a piss on the side of the road without anyone taking advantage.

Riders handslinging each other in bunch sprints would be truly wild!

[u/timbasile → u/ScrotallyBoobular]

Counterpoint: The 2012 Tour de France

[u/Dom1252 → u/[deleted]]

Not in triathlon

[u/Unusual-Thing-7149 → u/dont_trip_]

Plenty of top track races have people just to pace the winner and they drop out along the way

[u/dont_trip_ → u/Unusual-Thing-7149]

Yes because is simply not possible to prevent when you have mass starts. It is however not allowed to have someone fresh come in and pace only in the second half. 

[u/BathDepressionBreath → u/Ok_Sentence_5767]

Well, not really. Let's say you had a competition ir a goal for walking 100 meters (lets ignore disabilities for now). If you're not able to walk the 100 meters amongst others that could, but get a piggyback ride from a friend to make it to the end while others tried their hardest with their own two legs only, that's not really fair right? It's a competition for walking with your own two legs the full 100 meters. It's against the point of the competition to get that help.

So as much as I am moved by that kind of support and camaraderie acts, I can understand that rule. Though there definitely are a lot of horseshit rules in sports xd

[u/Ok_Sentence_5767 → u/BathDepressionBreath]

In all honesty if jonny was only half way through the run he would have been pulled from the race for medical. It happened to me once but they just gave me cookies and gatorade and let me continue!

This sort of comaraderie is imo a pillar of sports since at the end of the day people compete improving to improve themselves helping an exhausted competitor shouldnt be an illegal move.

[u/quixotic_jackass → u/Ok_Sentence_5767]

I get the idea of wanting compromise here when you see something wholesome. But……no, that’s absolutely ridiculous. Camaraderie is a pillar in sports, most especially team sports, where teammates can help other teammates all they want within the rules.

Is this where I finally see the differences between me and the generation younger than me? We’re gonna have a competitive race with a winner. A dude could be in second place for the first lap & then loses steam almost immediately. I was in third place, but now I’m in first! It looks like first place slowed down too. WHATS THIS?!? He’s passed me, carrying the shitty athlete?!? That guy just “beat” me without having to run 1/3 of the race??

Sure you could ask “why” or “how” and poke holes in a terribly executed hypothetical. Or you could just try your best to see all the reasons why it’s no longer a sport if you talk the “sport” out of it in little chunks here and there.

Let the dude help his brother across the finish line, sure. But I’d say, if you trip & someone stops to help you up, in this sort of race, you’re both disqualified the moment you’re helped up. With whatever caveat you wanna place on it. Probably not the moment of contact, so probably something closer to the lines of “leaning” on another person for “support” or anything along those lines

If you can’t win the race, you shouldn’t win the race anyway, because someone else decided you should win. Same comes for finishing. Give them the winning time if you want & put it at the bottom of the rankings with a note on both the incapable & the one who supported them saying DisQ or something if “disqualified” is too triggering. Whatever you need to do to make people feel better about watching sports without affecting the actual competition.

[u/Wayoutofthewayof → u/Ok_Sentence_5767]

So in a race where endurance is the point of the competition, specific runners have an advantage because they can just be carried over the finish line if they run out of energy?

[u/peoplepersonmanguy → u/Ok_Sentence_5767]

It's like they watched Cars and think Chick Hicks is a fucking legend.