Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2016 January 16

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January 16

Retroactive disqualification in sports?

In the film National Velvet, the main character, Velvet, participated in the Grand National disguised as a male, but just as her horse was about to win the race, she fell off her horse, which by itself was sufficient grounds for disqualification, but her disqualification was further cemented by the doctor uncovering her true gender. My guess is that in a situation like this, even if Velvet didn't fall off her horse and had not been disqualified on the spot, she would still be "retroactively disqualified" as soon as her true gender/identity became known, even if that takes place after the event was over. Am I right? 155.229.41.46 (talk) 19:26, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

In the original story she wins the race and falls right after the winning pole. Akseli9 (talk) 09:10, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Your question is about a specific event in a specific sport in a specific country, but the header sort of suggests you're interested in the question of retrospective disqualification in sports much more generally. Can you confirm that? If so, there'd be a huge amount of very diverse information, and you'd need to consider each sport separately, each jurisdiction separately, and even differentiate one time period from another, because rules have a habit of changing. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:10, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think your example qualifies as "retroactive", because she was female at the time of the race, regardless of when this was discovered. Now if a male won the race and later had a sex change, and that disqualified them, then that would be a retroactive disqualification. StuRat (talk) 03:17, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Hmm. Stu has a point, but at the same time it's convenient to be able to distinguish this case from the one where her ineligibility is discovered before the race starts and she is prevented from entering.

Anyway, whatever we call it, there have been many cases in athletics where a contestant was discovered, after the event, to have been ineligible and the official results were changed—what the original poster calls a retroactive disqualification. One notorious example from the early days of the Olympics was the disqualification of Jim Thorpe for not being purely an amateur athlete as the rules then required. (What makes it notorious is that there were official procedures providing a time limit for this sort of disqualification, and they were not followed; also that many other athletes weren't any more pure amateurs than Thorpe was, but got away with it. Thorpe got a posthumous apology but the original pre-disqualification results were never restored.) When it happens nowadays it is typically because of illegal performance-enhancing drugs, as in the case of Lance Armstrong, or some other form of cheating. --76.69.45.64 (talk) 07:57, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Another example is Erik Schinegger, the world champion women's downhill skier in 1966, who was raised as a girl and sincerely thought he was a girl named Erika. (She) He was disqualified and (her) his opponent is now the official 1966 champion. Akseli9 (talk) 08:57, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Another example is college teams which are later shown to have violated NCAA rules and all their wins during that time are declared "vacated". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:11, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Isn't this just called "disqualification"? I don't think there is a special term to mean "disqualified for taking part when they weren't allowed to". Iapetus (talk) 18:31, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I guess you could distinguish

1. You break the rules in the middle of the competition and (voluntarily or under instruction from the officials) you leave the arena before completing your playing time
2. You complete your playing time but are disqualified while other competitors are still playing (e.g. a golfer signs the wrong score card)
3. You are disqualified after all play has finished but before the prizes have been awarded (e.g. Canada stepped outside the lane in the 2015 PAG 4 x 100 m relay)
4. You are disqualified after the prizes are awarded but before the full competition process is concluded (e.g. Ben Johnson losing the 1988 Olympic 100m days later)
5. You are disqualified after the full competition process is concluded (e.g. Ben Johnson losing the 1987 WC 100m years later)

Which of #2–#5 counts as "retroactive" is a matter of opinion. jnestorius^(talk) 15:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Another point of variance: sometimes the runner-up replaces the disqualified winner, sometimes not, even in the same event: e.g. Juventus FC lost the 2005 and 2006 titles after Calciopoli; the 2006 title was awarded to AC Milan but the 2005 title was vacant. Similarly, Lance Armstrong's stripped Tour de France titles were not reassigned, but the 2010 Tour de France was reassigned to Andy Schleck in 2012. jnestorius^(talk) 15:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

In MMA, if the cheater/victim of circumstance wins before the truth comes out, it wouldn't be fair to pretend they lost and the loser won, so instead of a disqualification, it goes down as a no contest. No wins, no losses, just scrubbed clean. Doesn't really work for games with more than two sides, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:10, 22 January 2016 (UTC)