Did a triathlon this morning (nothing too amazing, distances were very short) and there was a junior one too. Ds2 (9yo) was desperate to do it but I told him he couldn't as the min age was 10. Ds1 did it and made a brill effort.
When we got there, one of the marshalls mentioend the youngest child taking part was 7. I queried this, thinking of DS2, and so she went off to check. She came back and said, sorry, the youngest child is actually 10 (she hadn't realised till I told her that the min age was 10).
Ok; so I did mine then Ds1 is going to do his swim when the other DC point out a girl in the pool who is at their school in yr 3; she is 8 and had boasted to Ds2 on Fri that she was doing this triathlon. He was annoyed that I had not allowed him to do it - I pointed out again that it's important to follow rules and I am not going to lie about his birthday. (Either this family had lied to the organisers, or they were deliberately misleading me.)
Besides, and rather more to the point, the 10yo rule presumably was there for a reason, most likely insurance to cover liability for the event, in the same way that our local panto stipulates 10yos and over to be in it.
So AIBU to report this to the organisers? I suspect I sound like a bit of a busybody, and I am rather annoyed that this family think they are above petty rules about age because their daughter is a good athlete; but also I am annoyed on DS2's behalf as if the rule was not a rule, more of a suggestion, he could perfectly well have taken part too.
In addition there is the issue that if people continually flout this kind of rule, organisations who stage events like this will get clobbered over insurance and wll ultimately perhaps have to stop staging them, or maybe charge a lot more, which I don't want.
Phew! Sorry for long post but what do people think?