2008 USAT Collegiate Triathlon Nationals Full

So, collegiate nationals filled up super early this year leaving many clubs wondering what to do about all of their team members that wanted to go, but can't because of the new 20 people per team limit.

The University of Arizona TriCats spent the 2007 fall semester setting up club goals and expectations based on sending 50 people to nationals.  They did their homework, calling up USAT officials to confirm that this would be possible, and then proceeded to lead the club using the set goals as motivation. 

November, USAT published new policies on their website limiting the number of entrants from each team allowed in the collegiate national race to 20 per school until February, and then teams could enter as many people as they wanted up to race capacity.

November could have been a good time for the TriCats to change their goals and reconfigure the club and how all of the fundraising credits would be used and the coaching could have altered the training plan to shift the majority of athletes training plans to some other race that had enough room, but the officers called the USAT officials in charge of collegiate nationals and were assured without any reasonable doubt that the TriCats would be able to get at least 40 people into the race if they so choosed. So the goals, and the fundraising structure, and the training plan all stayed the same.

 Fast forward to now.  Collegiate nationals is closed, and all of the clubs are being forced to decide who they are going to send to nationals and who doesn't get to go.  How can they decide?  Should the fastest people go? Should the people with the best fundraising record go? Should the officers go?

Why would USAT put clubs in this type of predicament?  Who knows.