Should lapped runners run in lane 2?

The moment you get lapped you should just go home and call it a day

It would make the race better to watch if they moved lapped runners to lane 2, but at least they showed some of the race in the morning.

I don't know. This is 2016. And it didn't stop the winner from running a world record. She handled it like a pro.

No. Every runner should run in the inside lane. It's easy to go around lapped runners.

The problems start when people move out.

Totally agree. What happens if two athletes are racing for gold down the home straight and there are runners in lane 2? So the person who wants to overtake for gold has to go into the back of the other people? Or loop around to lane 3?

What happens if people are fatigued and unaware people are approaching from behind and stay in lane 1? So you have to overtake some people on the outside and some people on the inside?

What happens if people don't realise til the last minute, step out to lane 2 just as the front runner is about to overtake them? Collisions.

I know it's not perfect as it is but it's the best solution. Runners should stay as close to the kerb as possible when they're being overtaken.

trollism wrote:

No. Every runner should run in the inside lane. It's easy to go around lapped runners.

The problems start when people move out.

Correct. Running inside is/was the NCAA rule, I believe, and it's a good one.

The problems come when you *don't know* whether people are going to move out or stay inside. If you know that they're going to stay against the curb, you can adjust readily. When the lapped runners move out--even if they *all* move out, which never happens--you face the questions of when they're going to move out and how far they're going to move out. If they just hug the curb, it's no big deal.

One of my runners was once hurt badly (we're talking ER badly) when she was tripped up by someone "courteously" moving out of lane 1. And look again at the final straight in the 1964 OG 10,000--how do you pick your path?

[Yes, I know that Clarke got in trouble earlier in that last lap--but if he'd *known* that the runner they were lapping was going to stay inside, I think he'd have maneuvered around the man fine. Instead, he was waiting to see whether the guy would move out or not.]

The one courtesy I would ask from runners who are being lapped is that they not run two or three abreast.

Right, just imagine the women's 10K with all of those lapped runners moving in and out of lane two.

No, the second you get lapped you should be forced to drop out. No reason to baby these runners who had no business in the race in the first place.