Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Options
That annoying moment your chip fails in the London Marathon
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
Don't know: they seem to have gone from nothing to anyone who has missed a mat is suspect. I saw a few yesterday that missed one mat and their split time doubled and were marked result in query.
I was wondering if this happened to anyone else as mine didn't register at the 5K point in Brighton either. Hope no one looks into my suspicious time - went from 3:35 last year to 2:44 this year (and my bib number was hanging by one pin for most of the race)...
Luckily, they (or their contractors) have an elaborate computer vision-based system that recognises race numbers (by the look of it) in order to sell massively overpriced pictures, so they will likely be able to pull all sorts of useful metadata out to let them find people on video too, and confirm that they passed various points- if they were actually on the course.
It would be reputational suicide to do anything other than measure twice, cut once- possibly even worse than invoking the spirit of Yolo Swaggins and letting cheats go.
They do. Hugh Brasher said they do. I quoted him earlier.
The organisers don't "name and shame" cheats publicly, They deal with them privately and remove their results - which is the proper and professional way to go about it.
I think it's probably only in recent years that they have come up with a system similar to Mr.I's but it does takes a few days to investigate them properly. We sit here complaining they don't care and are not doing anything but I'm pretty sure they actually do - and are.
I hope the cheats get banned from LM forever so that people who really want to run it properly get to run it!
Natasha Argent is apparently a tennis coach. I hope she gets banned from coaching anyone.
Sorry if this has been posted but i also saw 4 or 5 people with two chips one on each trainer. Whats that all about?
Championship runners all get 2 chips - presumably just to make sure they're picked up since prizes and qualification spots could be at stake.
Thanks Andy - i really regret shouting you cheating b4st4rd at that woman at the end now
Was she Kenyan?
SenidM said "Sorry, but I doubt if any of the cheaters found have ever looked at a RW forum, or even know that a magazine called RW exists, so naming and shaming is just our fun"
Don't think that is so, we had a Charity come on here to clarify their position and we've had several club representatives come on here to defend their runners on previous posts.
It has been known for people to run with a second chip, so get someone else a GFA or an entry to Boston. However, it's a simple matter to spot them in the results as you just find two people who have crossed every mat at exactly the same time. Then you check the photos.
See but this is an example where it all falls down for me when it comes to the organisers of the London Marathon finding cheats with their computer programs.
This lady here. Basically flagged as a cheat.
http://results-2016.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com/2016/?content=detail&fpid=search&pid=search&idp=9999990F5ECC83000019E99C&lang=EN_CAP&event=MAS&num_results=1000&page=38&search%5Bsex%5D=%25&search%5Bnation%5D=%25&search_sort=place_nosex&search_event=MAS
Yes she missed a timing mat, but have a look at the times. If anything she was ridiculously slow for the bit she cheated on, and anyone with half a brain would come to the conclusion she likely didnt cheat. So considering London Marathon have only a handful of people to check, and it would take no more than a 2 minute look at her times to know there was probably nothing untoward going on, why is it that they take 48 hours to flag up the culprits and even then some of the times they say are dubious are a stretch at best in terms of the accusation?
sounds like a job for Mr I.
Oh and to see that shes flagged up, type the surname Scarfe into the search terms and it will show shes under query.
No she was from Essex!
Boom Boom ... are you here all week?
hehe - thats reasonably good for me
Ohhh Mr I , that last runner you flagged up, she used to pop onto these fora years ago, Think I met her at a couple of races, assuming it's the same lady with the same name, still running for the same club...
Im not sure whether you meant that as a good or a bad thing Dustin!
that last one looked a bit starnge as she has some really slow splits near the beginning.......
then i noticed from the photos she ran part of it in fancy dress like the queen.so that would explain why she had a couple of slower splits.....doesnt look like a cheater to me so surprised they flagged it up
probably discovered it was too hot to wear it the whole way
It's good to see there are so few cheats, but I'm glad the minority are being put in the spotlight. Absolutely reprehensible behaviour.
Perhaps they've just flagged them using an automated system but have not checked them yet. I had two chips, because I'm special. It's to give me that extra edge in case I cross the finish mat with the wrong foot, losing valuable fractions of a second.
Someone from my club completed the marathon, but had no start time, splits or finish time.... She's highly unlikely to have cheated, and I guess the lack of a finish time proves that, but it shows that some chips sometimes just don't work... the most suspect ones are obviously the ones that fail at 10k then magically work again just in time to get the finishing time...
I see they were selling magnetic number holders at the expo. Small print says not for numbers with chips on - which is a LOT of races nowadays.
Your clubmate will still have pics of her along the way. If there's none then I'd be suspisious.
Haha lit - at least i know it wasnt you i saw at the end. I put mine on the wrong foot and that clearly caused all my issues
im getting two next time for balance
Actually, one time my chip failed at the start of a race but not the end. I ended up just getting a gun time, which was annoying.
I really really really can't imagine this person cheating. And I can't imagine that every chip works perfectly every time. I'm not sure how she'd have ended up with a medal by crossing the finish line, but not been given a finishing time, if her chip was actually working.
Edit: a little bit more investigation shows she has 21 photos from various parts of the course, but no times of any nature on her profile. I suppose she might have just dipped into areas where photographers were, but she also definitely ran down the Mall and went over the finish line... You can draw your own conclusions I suppose.
Ebay? Yours for £100. Heck, even the chips are going for £20!
Are they? Ace, I've got two.