1/2 Marathon Jogger steals banner moment from Women's Full Marathon Winner

She can't be that slow if she was a woman on a 2:46 marathon relay.

Notice 3rd place female - ex-drug cheat Liza Galvin-Hunter.

Her relay team (3 men, 2 woman) came in 5th place in 2:46.36. About 5 minutes behind the 1st place relay team.

She was 2 minutes behind the 4th place relay and 3 minutes ahead of the 6th place relay team.

It sounds like there should have been some better direction from some on-course volunteers up-wind of the finish line that direct what sides of the road runners finish on when there is an elite/winner in the area.

So, in usual LR fashion, everybody jumped all over a poor woman who made a mistake that many could have made in the heat of the moment and who most likely ran a perfectly respectable leg of her relay. Well done!

nova runner wrote:

So, in usual LR fashion, everybody jumped all over a poor woman who made a mistake that many could have made in the heat of the moment and who most likely ran a perfectly respectable leg of her relay. Well done!

Well, with the information given by the OP of course we came to that conclusion! The OP said the woman was wearing a half-marathon bib... What else are we to think? Once the news story came out it was obvious that the only person who severely jumped the gun about this woman was the OP because the OP at the time was the only person who posted on this thread that had seen it happen. Everyone else was reacting to only what the OP said and his point of view.

I almost made a Ferguson-police reference here, but I thought better of it. You should be proud.

Actually doing a little more research, this lady is an extremely good runner.

She runs 5ks in the mid 19s age grading over 86%.

Just bad planning by the race.

I do not like races that have multiple distances finishing at the same time. If I run a fast marathon, I want the glory of finishing early and not in a big pack and receiving crowd applause because of it. If I have to run in the midst of super-slow half marathon finishers; I do not get that glory because I'm buried with all the joggers.

I understand the logistically reasoning behind the decision due to permits allowing for time of road closures, and the cost of security, staff and police... but still... One of the reasons I strive to run faster is so I am recognized for my achievements...

Sdrag6 wrote:

That wasn't malicious.

Just a completely clueless woman who knows nothing about running, but thinks she does.

I bet she's the fastest over 40 runner at the women's workout world in her suburb.

Haha, who does she think she is, Shalane Flanagan? With all the gear and the knee socks. Ridiculous

who cares bro wrote:

You think an Ethiopian cares about breaking the tape? It's about the money anyway.

Here is an article from the Dallas paper about it.

To those who think it doesn't matter, please realize that the Ethiopian actually thought she'd lost the race for a moment.

I remember one time when I was running i think a 10 mile race with Bill Roders. He and I were right by each other for like 7 miles straight. He even thanked me for running such an even pace. Anyway, he was on pace for some 50+ world record. As we got to mile 9, I thought to myself, I either get way ahead or way behind. No way do I finish near him as I didn't want to mess up the picture.

Be self-aware people.

I was watching this on live tv. Dallas Marathon is delaying posting the video. If they get around to it I'll post it here. If they don't post it for whatever reason, I've got it narrowed down to 4 people and will be able to confirm once pictures are posted.

At the Dallas Marathon, like many other marathons, they have different colored bibs for all the events. Like every race out there you can see the course beforehand. There are plenty of signs and people directing the way.

The women's leader, Shitaye Gemeshu, had a huge lead for a majority of the race. There wasn't another woman in sight for most of the race after mile 8. As Shitaye is coming into the finish chute there is this lady in a half-marathon bib breaking out into a fullsprint. It takes Shitaye by surprise so she doesn't speed in time. This hobby-jogger is frantically trying to get ahead of the full marathon finisher and barely does by a half second or so. She breaks the tape, stealing the banner moment from Shitaye. Unbelievable.

I've run this course before. It's very unlikey this was just a confused half marathoner who found herself in the full marathon. For the last 2 miles or so, the half and the full are on the same street but on opposite sides of a street that's divided by a median. Furthermore, how could she possibly think a 2:46:46 half marathon is a winning time?

To end up in the Full chute this half-marathon hobby-jogger would have had to step up on the median at some point in the last 2 miles and go to the other side of the street to be able to get into the full chute.

Editor's note: Here is an article from the Dallas paper about it.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/more-sports/running/headlines/20141214-strange-episode-at-end-for-women-s-dallas-marathon-winner.ece

rojo wrote:

I either get way ahead or way behind. No way do I finish near him as I didn't want to mess up the picture.

Nice excuse for ending up way behind.

Wow!

A 2:46 half. I want her training secrets.

Yeah, hobby joggers are clueless, but it's still pretty funny.

rojo wrote:

Bill Roders.

I assume you mean Bill Rodgers?

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

That's quite Shitaye of the half marathon runner to do something like that.

nice.

This is on the organizers of the race. The woman who made the mistake thought she was catching a rival relay team. The race organizers should have had better signage and race course marshals in place to wave the 1/2 and relay participants away from the marathon finish. All they needed was someone yelling "Relay left!" and a sign with an arrow. Relay runners should also have to wear a bib on the back of their singlet so people will know whether they are a competitor or not.

Dallas marathon has been very sloppy in how they have handled multiple events on the same course. Fast marathoners have to weave through a sea of slow half runners. Finish area is obviously not handled well. I think it is race director malpractice to have any incident like this that is clearly preventable with best race course management practices. At the end of a race, people are stressed and not thinking clearly. Race managers are 100% responsible for this kind of stuff, not the participants.

rojo, this is not just some Ethiopian. This is Drug Cheat Shitaye Gemechu . Why do you even care if someone stole her banner moment?

Balian wrote:

Wow!

A 2:46 half. I want her training secrets.

Yeah, hobby joggers are clueless, but it's still pretty funny.

Clueless? Did you read any of this page of the thread or any of the linked articles? If you still think she ran a 2;46 half, you are clueless.

Precious Roy wrote:This is on the organizers of the race. The woman who made the mistake thought she was catching a rival relay team. The race organizers should have had better signage and race course marshals in place to wave the 1/2 and relay participants away from the marathon finish. All they needed was someone yelling "Relay left!" and a sign with an arrow. Relay runners should also have to wear a bib on the back of their singlet so people will know whether they are a competitor or not...

Easier said than done. The race I work for has a marathon and a marathon relay. We have a single finish line, we do not have the width available to have separate finish lines, and I suspect a lot of races are similar. The marathon and the relay start at the same time. We have debated about having separate start times, but no matter what you do you're going to have some fast marathoners and some slow marathoners, and some fast relay runners and some slow relay runners, so we don't see a way to make that work.

As far as bibs on the backs of relay teams, we tried that one year it was like herding cats. The relay runners tend to be a lot less experienced, so a lot of them didn't understand why they needed to wear 2 bibs and just threw out one of them. God forbid they should actually read the info sheet or emails we send them. One other year we only gave them 1 extra bib, for the last leg runner to wear, but I'd say less than 50% of the teams did so.

What we do is give the relay runners a yellow coil wristband to pass when they make their exchanges. It's a lot more subtle than a bib on the back but it gets the job done. The big thing we do is in our communication with our top entrants, both ahead of time and at our technical meeting the night before, we let them know that if someone passes them, or if they're catching a runner, look for the yellow band. Like Dallas, we have different color bibs for the relay teams so if a marathoner looks back they can easily tell if it's a marathoner or not. We also patrol the course starting after the last relay exchange to make sure the last leg relay runners are showing their yellow bands. We'll always find a few with the band tucked up under their shirt so our bike team let's them know "show it or it's a DQ". We only do that for relay teams that are going to finish in under 3:15 because at that point all the prize money winners are in.

The other thing we do, the escort cyclist for our top men and women, if a relay runner is coming up on them they have a duty to inform the marathoner that the runner is in the relay (they don't say anything if it's another marathoner coming up). That might not help our 4th, 5th, 6th place runners but our leaders tell us it's a big help for them.

26 years doing it, very few problems. Good communication and anticipating what can go wrong is the key. Not that hard to get this one right.

This. 2 years ago a relay team was first overall at CIM. The finisher pics show the relay runner being ushered to the right so they wouldn't break the tape. Daniel Tapia was just a few seconds back.Search on bib 24 here:http://www.sportphoto.com/Event.aspx?EventID=366