Lizzie Armistead

[justAl]

Should she have her Silver taken away just because she's an "Under-23".
IMO this is discrimination, or atleast it is, in the institution I work for.

 

[Skip Madness]

I don't think she just had her silver medal "taken away" but rather by accepting the gold for the under-23 race first she inadvertently made herself ineligible for the elite silver. If she had known before-hand, she could have refused the under-23 gold and kept the elite silver. It was just bad luck.

Edit: She has been given back the silver medal now anyway, hasn't she?

 

[John the Monkey]

Yes, she has - BC overrules the chief commisiare;

http://road.cc/node/5242

“We will be reviewing our technical regulations governing national championships at the next Board Meeting with the view to publishing clearer guidelines for future races.
“On behalf of British Cycling I would like to apologise to Lizzie Armitstead and the other riders competing on the day for the distress caused by this incident.” (Brian Cookson)

 

[GrumpyGregry]

that farce made the blazers that run English Rugby Union look competent.

 

[Cathryn]

Thank goodness they saw sense. Poor girl! How ridiculous.

 

[andrew_s]

It's really the BCF's fault rather than the commissaire. The rules do say "1 rider: 1 medal", with the rider getting the "best available medal" if eligible for more than one.
Problem 1: setting silly rule
Problem 2: picking a jobsworth type commissaire who's going to stick to the rules rather than use his common sense (as was done in previous years).

I must say, as an ordinary sort of person, it seems all perfectly simple to get right.
Same course, same start time = same race
First across the finish line gets overall gold, second gets overall silver, first U23 across the finish line gets U23 gold etc, regardless of who the riders concerned are.

You'd have thought that the BCF would have realised that the one riderne medal rule would cause ructions, but obviously not.

 

[Legs]

Not to mention, it was entirely foreseeable that Lizzie (or, if not Lizzie, then probably one of the other U23 girls) would win a 'senior' medal. Completely daft. I have great respect for Mr Clews but he has blotted his copybook with this fiasco.