One Runner, One Prize?

Just a thought, but I've noticed at a couple of races lately that some runners are picking up two trophies in the same event, typically the overall winner may also be getting the first over 35 prize, and so on over the various categories.

 

Other organisers have a policy of one runner, one prize, which seems to me a fairer system and spreads the rewards more down through the field.

 

Any other views out there? or am I alone on this one.

 

And no, this will probably never affect me personally, I rarely if ever am anywhere near the winners in any age group!

Comments

  • I don't mind as long as the runner who comes in first gets the most valuable of the prizes on offer (e.g. if the prize for 3rd overall is better than the prize for 1st veteran, you get that one).

  • why shouldn't they get both prizes? a race is a race, that's the point it's not about fairness. It's insulting to the winner and patronising the runners up who get prizes they didn't win. 

  • I won 3rd lady in a race where I actually came 4th once, Mr Puffy - I didn't feel patronised and I'm sure the actual 3rd lady, who won first vet instead, didn't feel patronised. I also don't imagine the first lady, who was 50, felt insulted that they didn't also give her first vet. All the prizes were the same, giant shopping bags full of seemingly random items, so you wouldn't really have wanted two!

  • I'm confusing prizes with places

  • Depends what the prizes are: Trophies/ medals usually have a specific placing marked on them, so it wouldn't be right to shift them down the order to the next person. Prizes like bags of shopping are different, and it seems logical to share around, if otherwise one person ends up with multiple copies of the same goodies.

  • senidMsenidM ✭✭✭

    In todays Buntingford 10M, winner, plus a couple of other categories got two identical (from where I was standing in the crowd) shiny cups.

     

    As i said at start of thread, not really a personal problem for likes of me, purely academic, and yes, "a race is a race" but if you have different categories..... why do 1st 3 also qualify for a prize in their age category?

     

  • Well, if you happen to be old AND you win overall, that's reasonably impressive, isn't it? If the first three were seniors they wouldn't be entitled to an age category prize, and if all the seniors in the race get beaten by vets they might want to try running a bit faster.

  • to be fair i don't think i have seen someone get more than one prize unless the second is a team prize. 

     Most organisers seem to work it out ok because in the female races around here there always seem to be vets in the first 3 , especially in triathlon. 

     I think that as lomng as they get the better prize then its fine

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    I've done a few races where I've had the 1st V40 prize while being a V50, for the reason the the first real V40 won the whole thing.

    Then again I've also had the first Vet 'best value' prize as a V50 when no other runner apart from under 40's were ahead.

    A clubmate of mine routinely wins overall, as a V50. Not sure what happens there.

    I've never picked up two prizes. I care not. I'm not a pot hunter.

    🙂

  • A clubmate of mine once got the V55 prize even though she beat the first V50, and the V55 prize was less money. I thought that was wrong.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    I've had something similar. I was 4th overall and second Vet behind two seniors. There were 3 senior prizes but only one vet prize. The guy behind me was also a vet. The senior in 6th place got the 3rd Vet prize. There were remarks made about that decision (not by me, by the way).

     

     

    🙂

  •  

    Do you mean the guy in sixth got the third senior prize? 

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Sorry, that's correct.

    I obviously had one of those 'Veteran' moments.image

    🙂

  • senidMsenidM ✭✭✭

    and just to throw another spanner in the sea of logic... following up from literatin's point re fast older runners.

     

    Surely if an over 60 wins a race outright, not as impossible a hypothesis as it might seem, (check out peter butler on powerof10, he ran a 77HM this year!), then...

    Should he/she not be given all the prizes, 1st over all, 1st senior and 1st in every age group up to the 70, if there is one? After all, by Mr puffys's  logic, if all the younger runners were beaten by an over 60 they don't deserve a prize!

     

    All of which brings me back to my original premise, isn't one runner, one prize a "fairer" system?

  • they are all just token prizes in most races and who wins them depends on who in the area turns up on the day. 

    in ironman there are only one or two places in any of the womens 5 year age groups.

     I did feel sorry for one woman who was in my age group 45-49. She was beaten closely by another woman of the same age and so didn't qualify. Yet she was faster than several of the qualifiers who were in younger age groups.

     

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    /members/images/493151/Gallery/Glass.jpg

    Depends how useful a prize actually is to some extent.

    I gave this one away to my clubs Christmas raffle. No loss, it'd been gathering dust since 2008.

    🙂

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    have benefitted and fallen foul of different interpretations of this.

    I've come 5th and got 3rd senior male. 1st and 2nd were juniors, which completely bamboozled the organisers, and I think 2nd actually got nothing, which made me laugh as I knew him.

    I've come 4th and got 3rd senior male, due to one ahead being given the Vet prize.

    I've come 4th with a vet ahead and not got jack.

    Most "fun" one, at the same race as the latter line, was leading the team I was 2nd claim for, home for a team win.

    Then finding out you can't count in a team when you're 2nd claim, even though the race was miles away from my 1st claim's base, even though it wasn't any kind of league where the 1st claim where competing.

    After that I sacked the 2nd claim team off...realising it's pretty pointless.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    I was once sent a cheque for £300 made out to me personally, for being part of a four man winning team in a HM.

    This arrived months after the event and the rest of the team were completely unaware of its existence. Hell, who was I to tell them about it, after all, I was the fastest runner on the team. I banked the cheque. Very handy.

    And then went and gave the other guys a surprise £75 a piece.image.

    It shouldn't have happened. I wasn't entered as part of the team, only as an individual. But I was a member of the club, and the organiser saw fit to use retrospective powers to get the result he wanted.

    Nothing to do with me. All I did was turn up and run.

     

    🙂

  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    now that's what you call a tidy prize.

    my current club won a decent sized half the other year, which was a huge surprise, as other years we'd have been outside the top 5.

    Was quite surprised that we had to go and collect the trophies at some council ceremony near the race venue months later midweek.

    Was ideal for the other chaps, being very local, but a 45min drive midweek seemed a little OTT, especially as it clashed with the Manchester Derby game on tv!

  • I thought it was pretty standard not to have to declare your team before the race, Ric? Unless the rules specified otherwise in that case?

  • ToroToro ✭✭✭

    RICF - that looks a very handy prize to me!

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Lit, I don't think I was aware there was any team for anything that day. I was more interested in running 100 miles in a week for the first time, which I did halfway through the race. 75:42 if interested. 

    🙂

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