Anyone else annoyed at the Men Holding the Finish Banner at Chicago?

Unless they were standing on the wrong side of the finish line there is no way they could impede anyone.

GDubs wrote:

Last year, they stood like morons and stared at the poor guy on the ground without helping him.

what did you want them to do? they are not paramedics and if he had not crossed the finish line, and it was unclear that he did, if they jumped in too soon they could have caused him to be DQ'd.

They are standing ON the finish line. If somebody was standing on the goal line do you think that would cause a problem for a football player?

What exactly is the point of having people holding the banner? I don't really know how they usually do it because most of the road races that I run don't have a banner or tape or anything like that, but it seems like most of the time they just have it strung across the line from poles. So why are the people even necessary? Did they just realize before the race that the banner was only 5 feet across so they needed people to hold it since it wouldn't stretch across the line?

MarathonMind wrote:

Unless they were standing on the wrong side of the finish line there is no way they could impede anyone.

So if you are running full speed to the finish and some dumbass is standing on inch on the other side of the line right in front of you, it's not gonna affect you at all?

Are you an idiot? Have you ever actually watched a road race?

No, can't say I have. Why does this make me an idiot? Couldn't the tape exist just as effectively without someone holding it?

And just to check out my point, I looked up a few photos from the finishes of other races and found exactly what I described: the tape suspended at the line, not held by people. One's that I saw that were held by people were held by people who were standing completely on the outside of the shoot.

My question still remains. What is the point of having the people there?

I can't think of a technical reason they couldn't string a banner across a couple poles for the first finisher to break.

But they want the lead woman to break a tape too. You might say, "well, get a second banner strung up before she comes thought." But what if she's a second behind one man and another second ahead of the next? You need a banner less than the full width, and you want the hombres to run around it and the chica to run through it.

Of course it didn't work out quite that way in Chicago - although any finish line malfunctions this year were nothing compare to last year's or the rest of the race this year. Luckily Gharib didn't quite knock Iwuti into the banner-holding dude. And as long as neither of the first two ladies crossed the tape, it would've been more fun if one of the dudes finishing with them had.

I thought the winner was slightly impeded. He had to veer right at the last second to avoid a collision.

The problem was that the two men with the banner froze like deer in the headlights. THey could have shifted over as the runners did. How about a little wider banner? Or maybe specifying to the winning runners a narrower finishline. But putting a banner on posts only works if the posts are outside the finish line width. Otherwise they'd just run into the post instead of the holder. And then would they trip on the long banner, hit their head and sue the race organizers.

How about a hologram of a banner! Then it wouyld show up on TV but no need to impair the runners.

survival wrote:

The problem was that the two men with the banner froze like deer in the headlights. THey could have shifted over as the runners did.

While a wider banner is a reasonable suggestion, moving the banner at the last second isn't. The last thing you need are two different groups of people (the runners and the banner people) trying to second guess each other and move this way and that.

Ever come running up behind someone on the sidewalk? You see you've got room to squeeze by on the right, so long as they continue walking the line they've been walking. But suddenly they hear you coming and think that they have to move. Instead of having a clear path, suddenly there is a 50% chance they will move right where you are planning to run.

Best to let the people in motion make the adjustments. It's not like they only brought the banner out when they were 20m from the finish.

(And for those wondering why have a banner in the first place, ever noticed what great promotional pictures it makes to see someone breaking such a banner with the sponsor's name all over it?)

Probably somethign to do with the necessity to have a banner/tape that's broad enough to show the sponsor(s) names clearly, and made of material substantial enough that it won't fold/twist and obscure the name(s). You can't stretch a big, broad, tape very wide without it sagging. so you have only an 68-10 foot wide banner, which must be strung up in a hurry, and the only way to do that is having 2 people hold it.

Forget about removing the sponsor's name to make a finish line tape manageable. I'd estimate that would remove tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even six figures, from the sponsorship pool. The photo of the winner bnreaking the tape connects the sponsor to a moment of triumps, and that's a lot of what they pay for in the first place.

they need to correct it. a longer tape for sure. that finish was annoying. both runners need to have room.

survival wrote:

I thought the winner was slightly impeded. He had to veer right at the last second to avoid a collision.

This was no accident. Gharib was very obviously trying to squeeze Ivuti over. The banner is cermonial and for the photo opportunity. THe women's winner proved you don't even have to break the tape.

The guys holding the banner were just doing their job.

Marathons seldom come down to a sprint but it does seem to be happening with greater frequency.

GReat finish!

i agree wrote:

they need to correct it. a longer tape for sure. that finish was annoying. both runners need to have room.

I don't think you can really criticize them for not anticipating that two runners might cross the line within a tenth of a second of each other.

Seems pretty simple. Someone affiliated with the race should have a word -- "CLEAR" -- to shout to the guys holding the tape to just get out of the way. The guys holding the tape should be instructed to clear the finish if they hear that word, with both knowing who's to drop the tape, as a second baseman and shortstop know beforehand who's going to cover second on a steal attempt.

Harry Kooter wrote:

And just to check out my point, I looked up a few photos from the finishes of other races and found exactly what I described: the tape suspended at the line, not held by people. One's that I saw that were held by people were held by people who were standing completely on the outside of the shoot.

My question still remains. What is the point of having the people there?

The answer to your question is that the finish line is very wide and they do not know on what point the winner is going to cross. They cannot have the tape across the entire line so they rely upon people to try to get it in the right spot.

You people complain about anything.

JPGarland wrote:

Seems pretty simple. Someone affiliated with the race should have a word -- "CLEAR" -- to shout to the guys holding the tape to just get out of the way. The guys holding the tape should be instructed to clear the finish if they hear that word, with both knowing who's to drop the tape, as a second baseman and shortstop know beforehand who's going to cover second on a steal attempt.

Again, asking for more trouble. The last thing you want is people moving back and forth along the finish line when they don't know which way the runners are going to go and the runners don't know which way the finish line people are going to go.

If they remain stationary, then the runners can line up their route.

Of course if one of the finish line people happened to 'clear' off the line and collided with a finisher who was veering to go around them, you'd be complaining about the stupid idiot who was moving around the finish line area.

Oh sure, that way we'll have even more ways for things to go wrong. To the big finish of "twelve days of christmas":

two tape holders a-scrambling' - multiple opportunities for collisions if someone guesses the wrong direction

and a slick banner on the pavement - think Chicago 2006, not to mention the sponsors' horror at the symbolism of the runners stomping all over their logo instead of victoriously breaking the tape

Side note, the holder guy on Iwuti's side did what he could to get out of the way. As I wrote yesterday:

The video: