Monday, March 21, 2011
It's 2011: Let The Cheating Begin
You know by now how much I abhor the swapping of bibs. Last year, another runner and I spent the better part of two weeks getting two runners in our age group disqualified from the Soldier Field 10-Miler results. It moved me to second place and got me in position to be a contender on the CARA Runners Choice Circuit, at least for one year. It just keeps on happening. I really don't get it. The latest ridiculous result is Char Green of Romeoville, who "won" the women's 60-64 age group at the March Madness Half Marathon on Sunday in Cary with a 1:33. I don't think so. Recent results show Char ran a 2:19:38 at last year's off-road Naperville Half Marathon and a 5:10:23 at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Two years ago, she ran a 2:06:42 at the Magellan Half and a 2:12:00 at the Las Vegas Half. Nancy Rollins of Evanston, ranked in the top two or three nationally in that age group, would not have run a 1:33. When will this nonsense stop? Probably not any time soon.
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7 comments:
The same thing happened at the Lake Geneva Marathon last year. the first woman cut the course two or three times, and ran 3 hours on this hilly course. I checked her previous results, and last time I checked, a 1:40 half doesn't equal a 3 hr. marathon, especially hilly. The race promoter pretty much did nothing. A shame, as the rightful womens winner lost a chance to have a marathon victory to her name, something very hard to do.
I'm not a fan either, but it will never stop, too many races close so fast and too many people get injured training that the temptation is just too great. I wish they would think about it from a fairness standpoint, but nobody does.
I abhor Race directors who wont transfer bib ownership when someone gets injured. They will take your entry fee gladly but can't take the time to transfer your bib if you can't compete. Who's cheating who?
You bring up a very good topic. I many race directors are so overwhelmed with everything else as are the timing company people who input race-day registration just in time as the race progresses. I have always thought a bib-transfer company would be a great small business for someone. There has to be a solution. It would be win-win-win, the injured runner is off the hook, the new runner gets in the race, and the race itself has no result and liability problems.
It's not enough to just catch the cheater. The posted race results must be corrected and national record keepers notified. Otherwise, the false results will still be considered official.
That becomes a problem as well with timing companies not bending over backward to keep making corrections as cheaters are found. I can see their side of it. It takes time and they have other races to deal with. You make an important point.
Why can't they have additional "check points". In the 2011 soldier field run, I watched a woman pretend to pull off and walk at what would have been mile 3 for her and around 5.5-6 for those of us on our way back, and then she hopped in with us and kept running. It just disgusted me. now if they had checkpoints at the "turnaround" point it would ensure that runners could not do this or their results would not be valid!
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