inside view
Mr. Stewart has been talking to people DIRECTLY involved in this incident and who were witnesses to it. I can’t understand why there are five pages on this subject, when the facts and the rules are crystal clear. Before any game starts, it is down to the marshals to make sure the barricades and surrounding area, is cleaned after games, (cos they wouldn’t want to make any bad calls, ha ha) and that there are arm bands at either end and the flags are in the correct visible position. All this should be done before each game (if I have missed any minor details, sorry). So this is the story - Joy eliminates all the opposition, goes down to get the flag, from where is should be, but its not there. There are several possibilities as to why; (1) It may have been moved so that the barrel doesn’t get caught on it at the start of play, (2) It may have been shot off during the game, or (3) Someone may have forgotten to put them in place before the game started, but nevertheless the flag must be made visible to the players. The Joy player asked the marshal ‘where’s the flag,’ the marshal shrugged his shoulders, (is this how you should be marshalled?) Although the flag was ‘apparently’ in the start gate area it was not clearly visible or accessable to the Joy player, meanwhile time is ticking on, so the Joy player touched the start gate with a pot (in the place where the flag should have been) then ran back and was about 2 feet from touching it when the time ran out. At one stage they wasn’t going to be awarded the flag grab. It could be bias or just plain and simple bad marshalling, but either way very unlucky.