A couple of weeks ago, your board of directors changed the rule for determining the age of participants in sanctioned events.  Henceforth, instead of actual date-of-birth, an athlete's age for an entire calendar year will be whatever it would be on December 31 of that same year.  Born on December 11, 1961?  Instead of racing all of 2006 in 40-44, the athlete will now slide into 45-49 a full year early.  Pretty sweet deal, eh?

Sweet as it might be for some (especially those born in the final few months of the year), the action represents both terrible policy and terrible policy making.  Here's why.

First, a basic question.  Why does triathlon (and just about every other sport on earth) embrace age group competition in the first place?  Come on, this is not a trick question . . . it's because age produces a relatively predictable downward effect on performance. Do factors other than age enter the equation?   Of course they do.  But most (excess weight, hours spent training) are essentially lifestyle choices, while others - like genetics - are far too complex for legislative remedy. Age group competition is the tried and true way for ensuring a relatively level playing field.

So, did any of the wise heads in current leadership positions actually stop and consider what this change of rule might do to the level playing field?  Under the policy just announced, the age group is now legislated to be 45-49 for people born in January or February - but 44-48 for those born in November and December.  Is this what you really wanted to do - enshrine into law a permanent advantage for some at the expense of others?

Don't believe me?  Just construct a hypothetical as a check.  Consider athlete "A", born at 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 1961 and athlete "B", born at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 1962.  An age difference of just two minutes . . . but under your new rule, "A" will race the entire 2006 season in 45-49 while "B" is stuck in 40-44.  In fact, if "A" happened to be born in Honolulu and "B" in New York City - thus making "B" some four hours and 58 minutes the senior of "A" - the new rule becomes even more absurd.

Does it matter if "B" was born in February (or March or April) of 1962 and "A" in November (or even October) of 1961?  Nope - the absurdity still holds.  "A" will be in 45-49 for the entire 2006 season, even though he/she was never actually 45 DURING ANY OF HIS/HER RACES.  Could you make the formula more fair by selecting a different artificial "birth date"?  Sorry, no matter what date you choose, you confer huge preferences.  Those of you born near year's end (who think this rule is just peachy) - what say we make the cut-off date May 15?  Given the limits of the tri season in North America, that means the age group is 45-49 for those born early in the year and 46-50 for those born in June, July, and August.  You'd scream like stuck pigs if USAT tried something like that.

To justify this kind of mess, there must have been something else that was pretty compelling.  In your press release, two reasons were cited.  Reason #1:  "This action aligns regular age group racing with the method used by . . . USA Triathlon for its National Rankings program".  Oh, yeah, that's a GREAT reason. The primary driver of the sport's growth needs to be permanently bastardized in favor of something that means almost nothing to anyone and is universally scorned.  Moreover, even if your ranking system is updated to produce meaningful results in the future (something it has utterly failed to do in the first 15 years of its life), tell us why an artificial birth date is somehow necessary to that process? Rank people by the age group they actually race in - and in the (relatively small) case of athletes who race in two different age groups in any one calendar year, give them two rankings.

Reason #2?  "This action aligns regular age group racing with the method used by the ITU for its world championships . . . In the past, athletes might qualify for the world championships with one set of athletes, but then compete against another set at the world championships."  Your constituents are going to love this one.  You want to significantly distort age group competition across the board in 1500+ U.S. races in order to solve a non-problem involving a tiny number of top athletes who age up between the world qualifier and worlds itself?

Not to mention the fact that the new rule doesn't even solve the non-problem.  Consider a hypothetical.  The 2007 ITU worlds are awarded to Hamburg, Germany for the weekend of July 20-21 and the U.S. qualifier is 2006 Nationals (held, say, in Newark on August 15 of 2006).  At Nationals, what do you do with someone born on December 27, 1962?  Under ITU rules, that athlete would race in 45-49 in Hamburg - but what category do you put them in at Newark?  In 45-49, even though they would barely be 43 and a half?  No, you say - they would race the age they would be on December 31, 2006.  Well, then, guess what?  You have hit the daily double, screwing up the system while at the same time leaving the non-problem in place.

The real reason, one suspects, is a subset of #2.  Could some members of the USAT hierarchy be wanting to kiss Les McDonald's hind-quarters in return for his support of USAT in its spat with GTG?  Hey, folks, your problem with GTG results from a flawed business model (coupled with an attitude typical to a hidebound monopoly) that will not be particularly responsive to bluster.  My advice?  Start listening to the marketplace and adjusting your product to meet the competition.  I think you'd be pleasantly surprised.

But enough already with policy problems.  Let's talk policy making.  This was a significant decision, so I assume you really did your homework.  Must have developed a white paper on the subject, eh?  Posted it on the website well in advance?  Published it in the printed newsletter?  Laid it out for discussion on the major web forums?  Held encounter sessions with a spectrum of age group athletes?  Assigned it to the age group commission for study?  Hmmm . . . well at least you put it on the agenda for the board meeting at which it was decided, right?

Sounds like very little was actually learned from the recent "troubles".  As you may recall, the old board was acting as if USAT was some sort of third-world nation - complete with rigged elections, tightly controlled information supply, and talk of amending the "constitution" without the consent of the governed  - and the resulting disgust eventually led an exercise of the initiative powers by the membership.  That original petition concentrated on the process of governance, with disclosure to and communication with the membership a central thesis.  But here we are, less than six months after the "reformed board" has taken its seats - and, with apologies to Peter De Vries, it appears as though we are already slouching our way back towards square one.  That would be a shame.

(Lew Kidder is a former USAT board member, and wrote most of the recent successfully-passed Petition that, among other things, reformed how USAT's elections are conducted. Kidder's USAT number is 1569, and this organization, with better than 50,000 current annual members, gave the numbers out consecutively since its inception almost 20 years ago. Kidder is one of the very few USAT Lifetime Members.)