Luke Watson Quotation and LR Headline

My interpretation was that when the two Ethiopians took a wrong turn Luke took the opportunity to throw in a surge and take a good lead on them. I guess the Brojos felt that Luke should have cruised until the Ethiopians came back onto the course.

I was equally confused but after reading brogan1's thoughts I tend to agree with him. The headline Sportmanship in 2011 has got to be a sarcastic jab.

no bad sportsmanship present. Luke did what he needed to do to win, it's all about taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves, it wasn't his fault those guys didn't know the course.

I agree.

I think if saw guys ahead of me take a wrong turn I would yell to them to stay on the correct course.

In fact I have pointed the way to confused competitors ahead of me in the past.

I don't want to win because someone made a mistake.

I want to out run them. That's what I am there to try to do.

Toro, that is a fair point, but the concept of "Mistakes" can be pretty broad. In any sport you take advantage of mistakes. Misreading a defense in football or a pitch in baseball are both are both "mistakes" that are essential to the game.

Another runner makes a mistake by not going with you when you surge. He could make a mistake by waiting to long to kick. He makes a mistake by not training as hard as you. He makes a mistake by not running tangents.

I have also called out to others that took wrong turns at local road races, but I am a letsrunner, not a pro. When you are doing this at the professional level, and you make a mistake it should cost you dearly.

Better to be lucky than good.

Tactical mistakes are much different than running the wrong course.

The question is about sportsmanship.

And maybe at the pro level sportsmanship isn't as important as winning.

In the MLB, a manager would have no problem making an appeal if a guy misses third base on a home run trot.

These are hollow victories to me but is part of the game.

I simply choose to comment that I don't like this but I have no argument against the results of the competition.

"If you can't kick a man when he's down, you don't deserve to kick him."

A quote I heard at a bar just before a fight broke out.

Good job Luke! The second in the mile was more impressive, but I'd always take a marathon win.

I agree with you, and have done the same. however if I were a pro, whose livelihood depended on running, I would do what he did. If you are getting paid to run the race, follow the course and if your competitors go off course, too bad.

toro wrote:

I think if saw guys ahead of me take a wrong turn I would yell to them to stay on the correct course.

In fact I have pointed the way to confused competitors ahead of me in the past.

I don't want to win because someone made a mistake.

I want to out run them. That's what I am there to try to do.

yeesssssss wrote:

I agree with you, and have done the same. however if I were a pro, whose livelihood depended on running, I would do what he did. If you are getting paid to run the race, follow the course and if your competitors go off course, too bad.

Luckily Luke's livelihood doesn't depend on running. Not such an easy way to make ends meet these days.

Anyway, pros should know the course. If others were able to discern the correct path, but the two leaders weren't prepared or paying attention, then there's nothing wrong with taking advantage. Of course I don't know exactly what happened here, but Luke certainly didn't do anything wrong and I assume he came away with more prize money for his surge.

Mr. Clif wrote:

no bad sportsmanship present. Luke did what he needed to do to win, it's all about taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves, it wasn't his fault those guys didn't know the course.

Yes, bad sportsmanship present. In the very least no good sportsmanship resent.

No he did not break any rules. No we cannot discount his win in any fashion. But the good sportsman in running wants to beat his opponent by outrunning him not by virtue of them making a wrong turn. If he were being a good sportsman he would at least have given them a shout about it.

No, of course he's not "required" to do that. Yes, of course it their responsibility to know the course.

What about Dave Scott's legendary passing of mark Allen in Ironman Hawaii by going around a TV truck? Bad sportsmanship or just f***ing clever thinking on his feet?

I don't see any bad sportsmanship here, in the slightest. There is no obligation to call out to other runners who go the wrong way. I haven't seen a valid response to the poster who defined a broad array of "mistakes", such as not running the tangents. Further, it takes away from your own race to lose breath and yell, and even if this was done who knows what the off course runners would think. In a real race I've never been able to do anything more than gasp out single words at a low volume and even this takes away from my race and makes me temporarily tired.

There is a chance they would believe you, but also a chance they would be confused or not believe you (they did choose to go the wrong way for a reason, right or wrong). Whether or not you put an asterisk by the runners name is an other issue: he won, but not necessarily because he was the most fit on that day. This situation is more akin to a few runners hitting the last steeple barrier and falling over and someone behind them passing them for the win. No issues of sportsmanship about it.

The article states that they took a wrong turn because they misread a sign. Stupidity cost them the race, not Luke Watson's lack of sportsmanship. Or one could say that Watson's intelligence allowed him to win the race.

If a wide receiver runs the wrong route in a football game is it poor sportsmanship on the part of the cornerback to take advantage of that and intercept the ball? Should the cornerback alert the receiver about his error in order to keep the game "sporting"?

Where do we draw the line on waiting for people to keep the race "fair"?

If the Ethiopians stopped to pee? If one of them got a side stich? Had to tie a shoe? Are any of these valid reasons for a professional athlete to sacrifice his race effort for someone else?

He beat 2nd by about 3:20 and 3rd by 6 minutes.....how far off course did they go?

For some reason I can't find any information about the prize money offered for this marathon. The closest is an article from 1999 that says "1st -- $3,000; 2nd -- $2,000; 3rd -- $1,000; 4th -- $750; 5th -- $500 (male and female)"

Info here:

http://parrot.siftology.com/rg/Article/article.jsp?articleId=7cf179330030016&sectionId=140

Of course this was 12 years ago, but if the prizes are in the same ballpark, shoot, I wouldn't yell at them either, it's the difference between taking home $1,000 or $3,000.

I won a club xc race some years back and two visitors claimed that they were in the lead and would have won,save fornot running off course. My own club newsletter claimed I "backed in for the victory".

Nobody asked me anything . The MFers were never in the lead and if stayed close enough to me I'm sure they would have outkicked me. (Yeah right).

A win is a win.

So the leaders veer off-course (their mistake) for about 20 seconds, and he wins by well over 3 minutes.

What's the problem?

I guess they're claiming that Luke should have waited for them? Why? So he could win by only 2:45 seconds instead??

Something similar happened to me in a half marathon once and it still pisses me off that the guy who went off course claims THAT is why he lost. Such BS. I was closing in on him when he veered the wrong way and he lost MAYBE about 15 seconds. I won by over 2 minutes...but he claimed afterwards he would have won had he not gone the wrong way.