2 of Triathlon’s Top 3 Finishers Are Disqualified : Oxnard: Nine professional competitors in all were eliminated for swerving off a narrow bicycle course to avoid hitting slower competitors.

The Oxnard Triathlon stumbled in its first lunge into big-time sports events Sunday when two of the top three finishers were disqualified for veering off a narrow bicycle course to avoid crashing into slower contestants.

Organizers of the eighth annual event heavily promoted the $10,000 in prize money that lured more than 700 amateurs and two dozen top professional triathletes to compete in a combined 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bicycle ride and eight-kilometer run.

But the event ended on a sour note as top competitors complained about an unsafe bicycle course with a awkward mix of fast-paced pros and slower amateurs.

“It doesn’t feel like a win,” said Brad Kearns, who was moved up to first place after judges disqualified Miles Stewart of Australia and eight other professional competitors. “A lot of pros were disqualified for something they didn’t have any control over.

“It is the first time Oxnard had a field with a lot of pros,” Kearns said. “The course was unsafe and it wasn’t good for them to ride on. It is too bad for the people who organized this.”

Race director Rob Fukutomi acknowledged that the bike course was too narrow for so many contestants. “But they were warned ahead of time,” he said.

During the cycling leg of the event, bike riders were restricted to the bike lanes of a loop running along Harbor Boulevard, Olivas Park Drive, Victoria Avenue and 5th Street. The problem arose when faster professional triathletes tried to pass slower amateurs on their second lap of the course.

“The worst thing about this race is that the bike course was much too narrow,” said Stewart, 19, who was disqualified for swerving out of the bike path marked by orange cones.

“Some of us are going twice as fast as others and if they swerve in front of us we’ll knock them down if we even touch them,” Stewart said. “We have to trust our judgment and go around them instead of getting into an accident.”

Mike Zugmaier, an official with the Triathlon Federation USA, said judges had no choice but to penalize those who broke the rules by departing from the course.

“There were people out there who were trying to obey,” Zugmaier said. “Some of them fell back and went slower because they couldn’t pass the other riders. It wouldn’t be fair if we just ignored the rules after the race.”

But Kearns, who benefited from the disqualifications, disagreed. “When it’s dangerous to follow a rule, that shouldn’t be a rule,” Kearns said. Several racers, including Mike Montgomery, 34, a professional triathlete who was disqualified, said they would not be returning to Oxnard’s event because of problems with the course.

Fukutomi agreed that the success of future Oxnard Triathlons depends on what happens with the bicycle course. Organizers will be faced with designing a new course or widening the present one, he said. But both present problems of adding to traffic congestion in the area.

“Or maybe this just won’t be a pro race anymore so we don’t have the same problems we did this year,” Fukutomi said. “But I don’t want to do that.”

For the past eight years, organizers have been trying to develop the race into a premier event that would draw top athletes. For the first time, sponsors Bud Light, Sizzler Restaurants and Pepsi put up $10,000 in prize money to attract athletes from as far away as New York and Connecticut, as well as a few international competitors.

When the triathlon first began, “It was like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney saying ‘Hey, let’s put a show on in the barn,’ ” said Laura Mosqueda, assistant race director. “We didn’t really know what to do, but we just wanted to see if we could do it.”

Since then, the event has become a prestigious race with one of the largest purses of state triathlons. On Sunday, the top competitors and wide field of amateurs drew about 2,000 spectators to the park at Oxnard State Beach. An additional 500 fans lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the bicyclists and runners.

Although some professional triathletes complained about the bicycle course, other pros and amateurs seemed to enjoy the three-leg event that began with a 7 a.m. swim in the Pacific Ocean.

Paula Newby-Fraser of Encinitas, who took first place in the women’s division for the fourth time in a row, said she was delighted to compete in the event. She said she considers it “one of the top one or two in Southern California.”

For Lisa Laiti of Leucadia, who came in second in the women’s division, the event marked her continued determination to disprove doctors’ predictions that she would never fully recover from two serious accidents. “But you can’t listen to the negative thoughts of other people,” she said. “You have to listen to what your body tells you and to what you believe.”

In the men’s division, Scott Tinley of Del Mar finished second behind Kearns. Garrett McCarthy of Redondo Beach came in third.

Coming in last was Gordon Gooding, a 59-year-old Shadow Hills man with 12 grandchildren. Although he completed the race in less than three hours, he said he had thoughts of quitting. “There was no one there at the back with me and it gets kind of boring that way,” he said. “But once I start something, I like to finish it.”