How was there a turn not blocked off at a national championship?
Or course marshals? Heck, my city has hosted USATF half championships before (PIttsburgh) and intersections are blocked off and most of them have volunteers or police officers to handle the crowds, etc.
Yes, you're supposed to know the course, but local high school 5K cross-country courses have better support to keep people going the right way.
The top 3 should *absolutely* get the US spots on the team - and pay those 3 the same as if they finished top 3. It's the right thing to do. Pay 'em all.
Hopefully Brooks will also give Jess any contract bonus for winning a US championship.
I think the top 3 at the time of the wrong turn should go to worlds and the 3 losing out should get an all expenses, plus appearance fees, trip to a major half marathon of their choice any where in the world.
I just watched the whole thing. The middle finger from Jess was deserved. Also Molly Born clearly knew what was going on and didn't celebrate when she broke the tape, which I thought was really classy. The coverage from the announcers was really lame. They didn't realize that McClain had lost the lead until the 20k split.
And from what I see, they didn't take the route they took off the course to get back onto it, they cut through a sidewalk. The officials were trying to help them make up time but they didn't enter and exit the course at the same spot (it was still pretty close), so technically, if USATF was going to follow their own rule book, they'd have to DQ what was the rightful top 3. Just a complete embarrassment all the way around.
Or course marshals? Heck, my city has hosted USATF half championships before (PIttsburgh) and intersections are blocked off and most of them have volunteers or police officers to handle the crowds, etc.
Yes, you're supposed to know the course, but local high school 5K cross-country courses have better support to keep people going the right way.
The top 3 should *absolutely* get the US spots on the team - and pay those 3 the same as if they finished top 3. It's the right thing to do. Pay 'em all.
Hopefully Brooks will also give Jess any contract bonus for winning a US championship.
I think the top 3 at the time of the wrong turn should go to worlds and the 3 losing out should get an all expenses, plus appearance fees, trip to a major half marathon of their choice any where in the world.
USATF is a full blown disaster. Award a national championship to amateurs who cannot even keep the lead car on course. Was ATC the primary organizing group for this event? Seriously? Imagine the PGA tour mismarking distance to the green
Thinking there could be a lawsuit coming from the top 3 that were affected? My guess is so unless USATF makes this right and very quickly. Today, once again, reiterates the need for better from USATF and to stop just taking paychecks.
The need to burn it to the ground, piss on the ashes, grind them into dust, and dump it into the Mariana Trench.
The athletes desperately need a people's revolution. Start their own governing organization. Let Max F***ing Siegel sue them, and when he loses, take all those millions of dollars of corporate bribery away from him.
No, they need to start a true pro league/tour and leave events like this one to age group runners. But they're all to chickenshiit, even the big names. This outrage will be all but forgotten in less than 48 hours.
This is completely on the organizers. Anyone who's saying 'know the course' has never been in the last three miles of a halfmarathon, you're in no condition to be making logical choices about where you're going, you just follow what's in front of you, whether that's other runners or a lead vehicle/bike. The only fair solution here, regardless of any bs rules, is to declare McClain and the other two as the top three finishes based on where they were with 2 miles to go, and leave it at that. Pretty sure the rest of the field would not protest to that whatsoever.
The place they went off course had small coneson the center line... race cones, not traffic. Guessing the incorrect turn was onto was part of the full marathon course and not part of the half.
So in part yes the lead bike or car should had made sure to know the course. But as lead organizer knowing you got some tricky course turns you got do a better job of course setup to make it pretty darn hard to not be able to figure out the course on the fly.
Male commentators didnt completely finish his statement about the technical meeting the night before, but im guessing there was mention about course turns near the end. Wonder if the lead biker for the females was in attendance.
Having run usatf regional championships for team competition the mass start full and half are always problematic but usually from a perspective of elite men runnning thru the slowest mass start half near the finish.
my past experience where the full and half course deviate are well thought out marked and marshalled. Same for where they merge to allow a single final segment and finish mat for both the half and full.
There should have, and possibly might have been, a plan / instructions to block off part of the road the females incorrectly turned into that wasn't followed or perhaps nixed race day cause police wouldn't allow it.
I recall 10+ years ago I think at the Portland maine half/full a similar debacle and the next year a directors tor stepped up took over and it happened again. After taking full ownership he did explain all the efforts he to made to personally ensure each and every volunteer Marshall had a map of the course and understood their assignment - and it still went wrong!
Sometimes your only as good as your weakest link
So part of the problem is having mass participation at same time
[Ps I think most of what I said just there has been posted, but pulling it all together]
Another curiosity is that there are traffic cones in the middle of the (incorrect) road that they run down - why, if that is not the course?
Special mention for the absolutely abysmal commentary from Tollefson and Hutchings!
- Advertising a Garmin watch at the moment of the wrong turn (with spectacular irony saying "she has timed it to perfection" for the Garmin slogan).
- Exclaims "ohhhh" at the moment of the turnaround
- Then says "that was really unfortunate whatever happened" about 15 secs later as the camera cuts (why did they cut the camera and not show footage). But no attempt to explain/identify what has happened.
- When it comes back he refers to McLain still being in the lead but now only having a 1m gap (when in fact by this point they are behind about a dozen other runners)
- At 1:06:55 McClain starts to catch up to other female elite runners - but the commentators don't make the obvious point that those runners she is catching must have overtaken them (so they are no longer in the lead). They just pretend they aren't there!
- At 1:07:33 the 20km splits come through showing the former leaders are not in the top 4 at they finally say Born is in the lead, and at 1:08:15 McClain's split comes up as 11th, 1min46 back. Only then do they vaguely begin to twig what has happened.
- They then (at about 1:08:20) just starting talking about Molly Bourn and her recent form etc as though it's perfectly normal she's just suddenly in the lead!
- Then at the end there is a lot of guff about it being "part of racing" but no attempt to find out what happened, even though they have an interviewer on the ground...
The place they went off course had small coneson the center line... race cones, not traffic. Guessing the incorrect turn was onto was part of the full marathon course and not part of the half.
So in part yes the lead bike or car should had made sure to know the course. But as lead organizer knowing you got some tricky course turns you got do a better job of course setup to make it pretty darn hard to not be able to figure out the course on the fly.
Male commentators didnt completely finish his statement about the technical meeting the night before, but im guessing there was mention about course turns near the end. Wonder if the lead biker for the females was in attendance.
Having run usatf regional championships for team competition the mass start full and half are always problematic but usually from a perspective of elite men runnning thru the slowest mass start half near the finish.
my past experience where the full and half course deviate are well thought out marked and marshalled. Same for where they merge to allow a single final segment and finish mat for both the half and full.
There should have, and possibly might have been, a plan / instructions to block off part of the road the females incorrectly turned into that wasn't followed or perhaps nixed race day cause police wouldn't allow it.
I recall 10+ years ago I think at the Portland maine half/full a similar debacle and the next year a directors tor stepped up took over and it happened again. After taking full ownership he did explain all the efforts he to made to personally ensure each and every volunteer Marshall had a map of the course and understood their assignment - and it still went wrong!
Sometimes your only as good as your weakest link
So part of the problem is having mass participation at same time
To be fair, the Portland Marathon is a dynamic course because the City won't let them stop the Max Trains through downtown. So you have a situation where not everyone runs exactly the same course based on when you cross the Max tracks. I can see how people going the wrong way is more likely because of that.
Still there's no prize money for that race. And the race director provided refunds and comped runners into the next year's race.
It looks like USATF released a statement and that the results will have to stand as is with Molly Born as the champion. They were also very clear about the fact that course marking and lead vehicles are the responsibility of the LOC, which is Atlanta Track Club.
I think it would be very appropriate for USATF to say that they won’t be using ATC events for championships or team selection races from here on out. This type of thing should be a never-event at this level.
Who is the single down vote toady on most of the comments? Max? Some USATF flunky?
There is *always* one down-vote on ANYTHING I post, cuz there's a genuine psychopath here who's been stalking my posts for a good five years. This guy has spent *hundreds* of hours of his time on Earth searching for anything I post about anything, so he can down-vote it.
I'm pretty sure it's because I ripped to shreds some incredibly stupid and offensive stuff he posted way back, and completely humiliated him.
There are some true psychotics who spend much of their lives here just to do stuff like that. I'm not sure if it's more sad or scary.
Memorizing the course wouldn't prevent this. How would you know if the course changed?
This happened to me once at a local 5k in SLC. I had memorized the course map and drove it the day before the race. I built about a 10 second lead at the mile, then the lead bike made a left turn when the course was supposed to go straight. I continued straight and then watched the entire field make the turn with the bike. A few seconds later I realized the race was going that way, even though it was a wrong turn according to the map. I turned around, made up the difference, built another 10 second lead, then was kind of cooked and pissed off. The race finished down a hill and the second place guy out kicked me and raised his hand like he won the Olympics. Infuriating.
It's very confusing when the lead vehicle doesn't go where the course is supposed to go, and in the moment it's impossible to know what to do. I can understand this happening at a lame local 5k like the one I ran, but something like this should never happen at a major championship.
They can not be allowed to exist anymore. They are a *plague* upon the sport, the athletes, sport in general, the lovers and spectators of the sport, and anyone anywhere with any common sense and decency.
