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jrjo
Gone Fishin
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Joined: 15 May 2002
Posts: 16451
Location: Lake Wobegon, MN
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 Posted: 12/01/05 - 15:45 Post subject: Marathoner Hack of the Day
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111900846.html?nav=rss_sports
| Quote: | Running's dirty little secret -- cheating -- is out of the closet and currently fodder for chat rooms, bloggers and other pontificators around the world. It all stems from an incident at last month's Marine Corps Marathon, when about eight runners from JeansMarines, a Toronto-based running group, cut about four miles off the 26.2-mile course in order to reach the 14th Street Bridge and the 21-mile mark before the 5 1/2 -hour cutoff time.
That what those runners did was wrong is beyond cavil. Husband and wife founders Jean Marmoreo and Bob Ramsay have, after some initial equivocation, admitted as much and offered apologies. Marine Corps Marathon race director Rick Nealis has banned the group, although not the group's 240 blameless individuals, from participation next year. Last week, most of the cheating runners, including Marmoreo, returned their finishers medals.
What is less clear is the reaction from some of the leaders of the sport, as reported by Amby Burfoot and Runner's World online. Boston Marathon race director Bob McGillivray sees the infraction as a victimless crime, and London Marathon director Dave Bedford told Burfoot that those runners were just cheating themselves.
Not to parse bromides, but isn't a crime, even one without victims, still morally reprehensible? And doesn't the name Rosie Ruiz resonate more with casual sports fans 25 years after her notoriety far more than does Lel Martin, last year's winner in London?
To err is human, but to condone cheating is to undermine the sport.
Far worse than the eight JeansMarines who cut the course at Marine Corps are the additional 320 or so runners whom Nealis has disqualified from this year's official results, up from the 180-200 that he says is the norm. Runners wear transponders that are recorded at timing mats throughout the race, so catching cheaters is fairly simple. And Nealis has already said that next year he'll add more mats to further discourage shortcuts.
Still under investigation is the possibility that hundreds of Team in Training runners also cut the course with the aid and encouragement of team organizers. Some bloggers defended such action as justified because the runners were raising money for charity.
Of the nearly 19,000 finishers at Marine Corps, 320 cheaters is nearly 2 percent. "Is 2 percent cheaters the norm for society?" Nealis asked. "I don't know." |
Okay, we'll bundle it all together and say 320 Hacks today.
Banning the 'group' from future Marine Corp marathons and all of them from next year's race.... is that enough?
Reading the Boston marathon race director saying this is a 'victimless' crime, raises my hackles. If cutting the course gets you a time to Boston, that's a black-eye on his own race. He better take a stance and soon.
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runaroundsue
Member
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Joined: 18 Sep 2002
Posts: 6629
Location: supporting GREENer pastures
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Posted: 12/01/05 - 16:37 Post subject:
he'll only have to take a stance if the numbers suddenly go down. I don't see that happening. As it stands, it appears that London is really starting to take the elites. Unless another marathon within the US takes the stab at being the premier of marathons and offers the big coffers of NYC and Boston......the RD will continue to look at numbers and numbers only.
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Pug
The Movie Geek
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Joined: 21 Aug 2003
Posts: 8924
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Posted: 12/02/05 - 13:51 Post subject:
Semi-correction: The Group/Organization is banned from next year. The non-cheaters can still run it next year, but not as part of that particular group.
With Boston as a qualification race, I think they have as much of an image problem if they don't try to crack down on cheaters. It puts a question mark over every runner at Boston unless they are elite/invited.
In a sense, though, it is a "victimless" crime because they only person who was truly cheated was the athlete himself (if a mid to back of the packer). Nobody else was "hurt", except that it tarnishes the race.
Still...it's cheating. Not to be accepted in any situation.
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AlaninTX
Member
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Joined: 14 May 2002
Posts: 6582
Location: Austin, Texas
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Posted: 12/02/05 - 14:01 Post subject:
So...like, in 2002 when I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, and after reviewing my painful splits and reliving my latic acid ladden trudge over the 14th street bridge you NOW tell me there was a different way to do it?
Sorry, too little, too late!  
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