A friend witnessed course cutting at the Philadelphia Marathon. When he brought it to the attention of the organizers, he received the following response:
“We weed out the obvious cheaters and then check our other resources when a runner’s performance is questioned. The truth of the matter is that very few people actually cheat. Don’t get me wrong, some do and we see it but most don’t. What most races around the world have seen is that people end up cutting the course and not finishing more from just being tired than from cheating and most will actually contact us when they realize that they crossed the finish line and got a time. In most of these cases, the people who do cheat only cheats (sic) themselves because they don’t get an award and they have a hollow performance.Races could spend a lot of time weeding out every cheater in their events and humiliating them. Most races prefer to give the athletes a very safe and good experience. Check for the people that might have cheated to get an award and leave it at that.”
To date they have not removed a few very glaringly erroneous results (including a few sub-1:00 half marathon splits), including some that do in fact effect awards. I’m curious as to how folks feel about Philly’s response. I find their suggestion that cheating is only significant if you’re fast to be offensive, and don’t understand how reporting accurate results is “humiliating” to anyone.
Philly is a great place to race, but with the exception of the Philadelphia Triathlon every event that I have done there has been some combination of understaffed, overcrowded, or under-supplied in terms of course support. At the Broad Street run a few years ago I was officially recorded as a DNF since I supposedly missed multiple timing mats, even though I never strayed from the course. When I ran the Philadelphia Marathon a few years ago, the aid stations ran out of Cytomax after barely four hours.
I would be more understanding of their response if it were something more like, “we can’t feasibly put enough staff on the course to monitor every inch of it, so we focus on monitoring the parts of the race where cheating would affect the top finishers. If we learn of further instances of cheating then we will take the appropriate action. Thank you for the heads-up.”
The response that they gave you is pretty lol-tastic.
Don’t get me wrong, though: Philly is a good racing spot.
The response that they gave you is pretty lol-tastic.
lol-tastic indeed. And even if you buy their rationale that it doesn’t matter unless you’re getting an award, check out the 3rd and 4th place women in the 40-44 AG. Both missed the start and 10k mat and came through the 1/2 in 52:xx. I have no idea if they cheated or it’s a timing error, but if I were the woman who is listed in 5th, I’d at least want it addressed.