Right firstly this post is going to be a bad bad post along the line of cyber bullying. So don't read on if you do not believe in cyber bullying because this is gonna be a name and shame post.
And secondly, maybe maybe after this post, I will really get kicked by some runners during my future photo assignments.
But heck, do I really care a damn? Of course not. So here goes......
Well I was at the Garden by the Bay East on Sunday taking photos of the runners doing the Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore. (SCMS). This was roughly at the 35 km part of the race. The first runners came by around 7 am roughly 2 hours after the flag off. Those were the elites. A rough back of the envelope calculation - the average 4 hours runners will reach this area around 8.20 am and indeed the 4 hours pacers came pass me at 8.19 am.
But way before that I had already noticed a very unique hi usual thing. As a regular runner and active photographer for the past years, I can recognise a fair number of the local runners who can do sub-4 and there aren't really a lot of them here in Singapore. And even if I don't recognise them, I can tell by the way they run that they are seasoned runners and used to that type of timing. But what was interesting this time was that I could see many unfamiliar faces and people who pardoned my saying so, do not look like runners who are capable of doing this type of timing. Now I know looks can be deceiving but it is kinda difficult to believe that these following people can run sub 4 marathon.
And more over as I came to find out later, runner with orange bib are self declared sub 5 hours runner and starts in a much later wave. So they couldn't have been so fast to reach 35 km in just over 3 hours!
And true enough, my instinct was right. A quick search at the event site and these are their race splits. Looks like all of them skipped the distance between the 10 km checkpoint and the 30 km checkpoint slashing a cool 20 km off the total distance.
And everyone seems to be doing it. Not just the not so athletic looking people but the young folks like this guy
And foreigners as well
And even the very athletic looking guys are doing it. The type that looks perfectly capable of doing this sort of timing but look at the splits
And there are more, too many for me to list them all here.
Looking at the splits, almost all of them turn off after the 10 km checkpoint which is somewhere around the Sports Hub. I believe after coming out from that area, instead of going towards Fort Road and East Coast Park, they simply turned right on Tanjong Rhu to Garden by the Bay East and continue on from there. I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt that they got lost but I really really doubt it is the case.
And again I like to think that the weather was too hot for them and they decided not to continue on but turned back. But they should then do the right thing and not cross the finish line but in all cases they did which leaves me with only one conclusion - they just want the finisher tee, medal and the bragging rights that come along with it and are not interested at all in completing the distance!
Me think it is high time race organiser takes steps to weed out these sort of behaviour. It is not good for a "gold class" event and a waste of resources and hinder the genuine runners. For starter, I think event organiser should stop giving away finisher tees at the finish line like what many overseas races do. I am very sure that the event won't be so attractive to the non-runners if there is no finisher tee for them to wear around town to show off. Race organiser should also ensure strict compliance of race rules and barriers and marshals should be deployed at vulnerable junctions and points along the routes to reduce such cases of cheating. And last but not least, get the timing system working properly so that their status is stated as DSQ and not "Finished".
And for the many who did take the short cut, I hope you asked yourself is it worth it? To lose your integrity and reputation for a lie that can be found out so easily?
Running Sucks
*The writer blogs at http://runningsucks.blogspot.sg/