Is this allowed ?

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/world-of-sport/half-marathon-runner-misses-turn-runs-full-marathon-174833121.html Surely you can't swap races mid way through ? If you start as a half marathoner you should finish as one ? And how dopey is she anyway ? Not noticing until after 20 miles ?
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Comments

  • BookyBooky ✭✭✭

    Link (with more detail)

    Apparently she missed the turn for the finish, decided to turn it into a 20 miler, but then realised she was in first lady position so carried on with permission to compete in the full distance.

    I can see it both ways - a bit unfair to the women behind her, as she wasn't originally competing against them. But at the same time, she ran the distance and came in ahead of them. It's a bit murky in terms of fairness.

  • Good time though, especially given she had to get the OK from the race organisers. Difficult to believe she didn't notice until 20 miles though!
  • I'm more shocked that she was allowed to wear headphones. image

  • Cross post - that makes sense then.
  • I don't think it is unfair to the second woman. If she'd finished before me and it didn't count I wouldn't really think I'd 'won'.

  • Heh - running 7 miles over distance before you realised seems a little unlikely to me, but if she ran the distance, then fair enough.

    It's certainly more allowable than that Brighton marathoner, who not only missed a turn, but missed an entire loop, before hopping a fence after a breather, carrying on and claiming a laughably unrealistic PB. I see she's been going really well since too... image

     

     

  • BookyBooky ✭✭✭

    She did notice before 20 miles - it just says that once she realised she'd missed the turn, she decided to go for at least twenty image

  • To be fair she asked before she completed it. It sounds like she'd have accepted it if she'd been told it didn't count.

    Bit of a choker for the women behind her but they know they need to raise their game now image

  • I don't think she should have been allowed to take the win...........the person in second place wasn't racing her.....

     

  • NjordNjord ✭✭✭

    Tricky one. 

    Reminds me of the UK Corporate Games in 2010 when the 5K and 10K were run simultaneously.  A talented colleague of mine was running the 10K and cruelly refused to let the lead 5K runner draw level (the 5K runner wanted to check the colour of his race number so he could find out if he was in the same race).  My colleague ended up winning the 10K very comfortably and reached the 5K split well ahead of all the 5K runners.  He was only awarded one prize though.

    I say cruelly, but I was running about 30 seconds behind at that point and knew what he was doing.  I was p1ssing myself laughing!

  • When you "race" you race the people in the race. the people you line up along the start and take stock of. The 2nd place woman would have had a tactical disadvantage not to have known the other woman was even in the race. I would think that the rules would be clear that you have to be officially entered into the race to win it. Seems obvious doesn't it?

  • I'm with NLR on this. If its a race - you have to race the people you started with.

    You can't decide mid race to change distances - even if the Race Director says you can. The other athletes aren't aware of it.



    LOL Njord - nice tactics !
  • As the organisers gave her permission to carry on I would have thought the gripe should be with them rather than her.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    I've always maintained that in a race of two different distances run over the same course or (in the case of the Chiltern League XC) two different divisions running in the same race, at least one of the groups of runners should have an identifying mark on their backs, even if only a small square of paper held by one safety pin.

    🙂

  • So Kitten Kat thinks that not entering the race in the first place doesn't bar you from winning. Not end of.

  • Some races are races & not PB efforts so you race those around you and you do enough to win.  So once the half mara lady shot off the leader of the mara would have let her go and concentrated on staying in front of the next lady back.  I would feel hard done by. 

  • Okay, yeah, I'm slightly changing my mind... but in this case I think I genuinely wouldn't mind if I were the second lady, because (a) if I were running a marathon slower than 3:12 I'm not sure I'd be expecting to win it, and (b) she wanted to complete it to qualify for Boston, which she managed, and I'd have felt churlish insisting she be disqualified.

  • Shouldn't be up to the other competitor to make the decision..........

    Heres a good one. If the elite ladies set off and the race was won and then a lady in the main field ran a faster time. Who would be the champion?( using London as my example)

  • Sussex Runner NLR wrote (see)

    Shouldn't be up to the other competitor to make the decision..........

    Which it wasn't, it was up to the race director. But I wouldn't be complaining about it either if I'd been second lady.

    Other question is more controversial: there'd be the usual arguments about being paced by faster men etc. But it works the other way round doesn't it? I.e. wasn't the UK champion with the elite ladies rather than racing all the other UKA championship ladies?

  • NjordNjord ✭✭✭

    Sussex Runner NLR - bizarrely, that particular situation *has* happened in a pretty big (20000 runners) marathon:

    http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/At-Women-s-Marathon-fastest-time-didn-t-win-3264819.php

     

  • That's especially odd because it was a women's marathon anyway, so there's no reason to separate the 'elite women' the way they do to get them out of the men's race.

  • Nevermind winning or losing, she should be arrested and charged with theft.

    The half marathon cost less to enter than the full marathon, did she pay the extra $25 on the way round or just steal the extra race distance?

     

  • RicF wrote (see)

    I've always maintained that in a race of two different distances run over the same course or (in the case of the Chiltern League XC) two different divisions running in the same race, at least one of the groups of runners should have an identifying mark on their backs, even if only a small square of paper held by one safety pin.

    They do this in the north Staffs league I think, the point being you know who you are racing against.

    as for this instance, as she wasn't entered in the race, how could she win it?  you can't enter a race half way round.

    race director is a dickheadto let it happen.

     

  • He is a dickhead. It's interesting how many of the comments in this story just think it's "awesome" and can't see anything wrong with winning in this way. It shows a lot of ignorance and lack of understand of this sport and sport in general. 

  • Comments on other websites rather than our own I meanimage Excluding KK who is clearly part Canadian.

  • Nice recovery, Sussex Runner.

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