Illegal Advantage

In business, sandbagging is a strategy of lowering the expectations of a company or an individual’s strength and core competencies in order to produce relatively greater-than-anticipated results.

In sports, especially in the non-elite category, more specifically the age based category, sandbagging is rampant if not insidious. There are also sub-categories in sandbagging and the most common in most local races is to pretend that a cyclist is older than he or she is in order to race in an older and therefore weaker category. For example, there are cyclists who are still in their 40’s and racing in the 50-60 cat, the cat where I compete. Then there are those athletes who feign illness or lack of training to be allowed to race in a weaker and older cat.

One of the more infamous sandbaggers I knew back then carried three kinds of IDs- one that identified him as 30 years old, 40 years old and 50 years old. He would look for a cat with inferior riders and race there. Of course, he won!I can proudly say that I have never sandbagged, ever.

Sandbaggers are usually insecure people, boast about their victories and then brazenly post their podium pictures on social media, in spite of the fact that they’re not supposed to be there in the first place. In events that I have organized, I don’t allow sandbagging.

The best way to categorize bicycle racing is age related. While it’s not perfect, I think it’s the best guide to level the playing field.

Then there are those cyclists who will attempt to justify racing at a weaker cat by telling me that they are undertrained, they’ve been sick, or working, yadi yadi yada. Well, I tell them that if they are undertrained, then they shouldn’t join because they’re risking their health. That usually puts them in their place.

The third type of sandbagging is the, “corpo” or corporasyon. This is a situation where two or more of the strongest riders agree secretly to fix a race. One rider attacks, his “corps” allows him to go. Then the weaker riders give chase and when that breakaway order is caught another member(s) of the corps goes for an attack. This cycle is repeated until the chasers get tired or demoralized. After the race, the cash prize is then divided up but the crop. So instead of watching a potentially great race, it ends up a so-so race because the winners were pre-planned.

Corpos are easy to recognize but difficult to stop, but if you recognize one, then the best thing is to go and ride with the attacker. This is only seen in small races because racing is individual. But if many multi-rider teams are racing, then the corps is lead because it is now among teammates.

However, these are just small problems, and what sport doesn’t have any problems? Every athlete, every team, wants an edge. The cycling pros even resort to using illegal substances to get that advantage.

Sports doesn’t build character. It exposes your true character.