I would have liked to seen this scenario, as an official I have several questions.
1. Was this the first injury timeout?
2. Was it a injury to the head/neck area?
Now as I wasn't there, and didn't speak to this official I cant say why he would do that, im not going to speculate and throw a official under the bus, but the situation as described Id almost have to have seen it to understand why. All I can comment on is that I will stand near the coaches and let them know, coach 1 min has passed, or coach you have 45 seconds remaning, and will increase as the time gets under 30 seconds, 20 sec, 15 etc. There may be some gray area and different officials may interpret it differently. ive asked state rules interpreters this questions and it gets into a gray area somewhat of judgment. Some may say if your not back in the center ready to wrestle when time expires your done, others like me, if it does hit 1:30 ill ask the coach yes or no, and if he is going to continue , if so get to center quickly, no excess coaching or stretching a leg out etc, and I will inform coaches that another injury timeout will end the match as you have no time left. As I said some guys will go strictly by the book, and others may be a tad more leinent. What ive seen in the rule and case book, is that if a wrestler reaches the end of time, they have to make a decision wether or not to wrestle and proceed without hesitation. If you check, rule 3-1 article 14, it will cover the referee duties during this.
Thank you for your reply and insight. I wish someone would have gotten the entire incident on film, but not thinking that part was important, video was paused.
1. Yes it was the first injury timeout.
2. No, it was a knee/ankle (he's leg was twisted/pulled at an awkward angle).
What you are describing (counting down, asking the wrestler if he can continue) are all the things I have seen done before. I have seen a wrestler laying down and the ref will come over and ask if they are continuing. It just seemed so crazy to me that the wrestler is up, snapping head gear and walking to the center and the ref doesn't say anything until both wrestler are in the stance. I recognize that it is a hard job and most refs have good intentions, doing the best they can. I have been involved in this sport for a long time and this was a first for me. It felt like their was a personal agenda by the ref, but I didn't want to assume without know what a ref is required to do.
I looked up the rulebook and it states (thanks for pointing me in that direction):
Mechanics of the Injury, Blood and Recovery Time: The mechanics will vary on these three situations depending on what facilitates the stoppage.
o At most levels of competition the table has a stop watch for the different times.
o Signals on the mat should be directed towards the table using the color for the stoppage time.
o Timer will start the stopwatch.
o The referee should stay in the middle or near the injured wrestler with the stop watch.
o Stay quiet as to what you saw, only answer questions asked by the medical personal. o Don’t talk to the coaches or the other wrestler. Silence is your friend here. If you talk to a coach or wrestler it can be misconstrued as favoritism, or worse yet a coach will tell you, “I told you it was illegal, now he is hurt”.
o Have the stop watch brought so you can tell the coach when there is one minute left, 30 seconds and 15 seconds. At that point a determination must be made, as to the continuation or not. If the wrestler using the time stoppage can NOT continue, his opponent will determined the winner.
o Except in the case of the recovery time, if the wrestler uses all the recovery time and CANNOT continue, he is the declared winner. The caveat here is that the injured wrestler may default the match prior to the two minute recovery clock expiring.
There was no stopwatch or giving a 15 second warning. Also, this is a bit vague where it says "At that point a determination must be made, as to the continuation or not." How is that determination made? I have always seen a ref ask, but it does explicitly say that they are required to. I also would think that the wrestler standing, snapping head gear and walking to the center before time expires is a pretty clear indication that they are ready to continue.
