Consider this an open letter to Matt Nestor of the Columbia Tribune and all of the other people that think that banditing a race is okay.
The news is starting to get a little old at this point and common sense says it shouldn’t even be addressed, but Matt finished his recent article about Scott Downard being disqualified from the Cowtown Marathon after running with somebody else’s bib by mentioning that the win was reassigned to Kolin Styles and saying, “But we all know who the real winner is.”
Well yes, we do know who the real winner is. The real winner is Kolin Styles.
If Scott Downard had jumped in a car and skipped 5 miles of the course before hopping out and finishing first, would you still consider him the winner? If he started an hour before the official start and crossed the finish line first, then would you consider him the winner? If he hopped on a plane to London, managed to get by security, and then finished before everybody else in the Olympic Marathon, would you consider him the winner?
My guess is that you would not. And if you wouldn’t consider him a winner, then why would you consider him a winner if he cheats by running in a race while pretending to be somebody else?
Let’s look at other sports. Football is popular. If somebody crosses into the endzone with the football, but had to grab somebody by the face mask to get by, or had to go out of bounds first and then run back in, should they score a touchdown? Because as I seem to recall, they will usually down the ball and the touchdown won’t count.
Bandits are a real headache for race organizers. They use resources that aren’t intended for them, they threaten race cancellation for permit violations, and they screw up results when they use somebody else’s bib number.
A race that I put on recently had a few bandits. That meant that runners who should have gotten awards didn’t know about them and left without them. After spending 2 weeks after the race sorting out the mess, if they wanted their award they then had to go out of their way to pick up their award. Had we not ordered 27 more awards then we actually expected to give out, then 25 people would never have even won their prize because other’s had stolen them.
At Cowtown, the situation was figured out relatively quickly and Scott admitted that he cheated. But he also stole Kolin’s opportunity to break the tape. That’s a good feeling, to finish a race and realize you’ve won. Finding out after the fact is better than never realizing it, but it still doesn’t have the same impact.
Bandits also pose a safety hazard in case something happens on the course. Sure, everybody thinks that they are invincible, but accidents happen. Most runners don’t have any identification when they race other than their bib number. If Scott had gotten hit by a car or had a seizure, then he could have had inappropriate medical attention applied to him by emergency responders. Getting a phone call telling you that a spouse or father or child has been killed or hospitalized is never pleasant, so why would you want to risk giving that call to somebody else’s loved ones?
Following the rules isn’t very difficult. If you break the rules, then you don’t deserve a place in the results. Somebody fast enough to run a 2:31:40 marathon has probably been running and racing for long enough to know that, especially since it should be common sense even to somebody running their first race.
If he had felt the need to run the race under somebody else’s name, he should have at least had the decency to not cross the finish line or to DQ himself after he won rather than waiting for the race organizers to figure out that he was an imposter. Even better would have been to not run, or to contact the race director and ask for a bib.
It may come as a shock, but most race organizers are more than happy to offer comped bibs to runners that have a chance to win a race and provide some good competition up front.
My stance on bandits may be a bit extreme, but I consider a minimum 1 year ban from the race more than justified for somebody that intentionally cheats. Glorifying those runners through your position in your local media does a disservice to your community and portrays the wrong message to the non-runners and kids that might read your article.
Hat Tip to the Marathon Junkie for sending me the article.
No on bandits.
I think races that have a method for runners that become injured during training or unable to participate due to unforseen circumstances both help out the registered runner and the runner that wants to participate but needs a bib.
With chip timing and electronic runner databases it should not be difficult to change the runner registration number.
If needed add an “admin” fee to cover the costs of changing the runner profile associated with the bib.
I agree that it can be annoying if races don’t allow for transfers, but will also say as a race director that it can get complicated the closer to the race you get (especially in an age with chip/bib timing) and last minute changes can lead to errors in results.
No on bandits. I feel it is just bad Karma.
If rules exist, then we should probably stick to them. If I miss the cutoff to enter a race, I think I would be annoyed to hear that a bandit was able to run (and place or win) in a race.
Hey Blaine,
I definitely agree that it was the correct decision to disqualify him since he didn’t pay his entrance fee, and the race director said she would have been glad to comp him an entry given his previous race times, including a 2:25:33 at the Columbus Marathon.
However having read his interview on runningtimes.com (http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=25453) I sort of understand his reason for entering with the a friends number, he said in the interview that his plan was only to pace a friend through the half marathon and then drop out, but he decided to get in a few more miles at marathon pace as a good training run, but upon doing so he realized that his training pace was faster than everyone else’s race pace, he was in the lead and the crowds were too thick to abort the race without drawing suspicion. He even stated that he started to back off the pace in hopes that someone else would come from behind and catch him so he wouldn’t break the tape. Also according to Time Magazine and Running Times he did actually confessed who he was to the race volunteers without being prompted and admitted his mistake.
It was a stupid thing to do, but he did it anyway, and I think we can all see now that he should have simply ducked out earlier and dealt with the fallout from that instead of what happened, but it must not have seemed like an option before. Hopefully he will take the raced director up on her offer of a comp entry next year and he can really open up and win it for real, after all whether he broke the rules of not, he was by far the fastest man to toe the line that day.
I tend to disagree. I think that only banditing half the race is not really much better than banditing the entire race, and thinking about dropping out is not even close to the same thing as actually dropping out. We’re defined by our actions, not what we tell people that we were thinking after the fact.
Thanks for the link to the Running Times article, I hadn’t read that one yet. I hadn’t seen where he did tell people right away, that’s certainly one small point in his favor if he DQed himself before they figured it out on their own.
Definite no on bandits. There is always plenty of opportunity to apply for inclusion in a race. Kudos for a personal achievement if they are able to win a race. But if they can’t follow the rules, why should they be recognized for the effort? Should a check forger be allowed to keep the money because he made the effort to walk into the bank to cash it?
That’s a great analogy! I’m officially going to start using that one myself, thanks Ralph!
Sure, be my guest, Blaine. 🙂
What I don’t get is that Downard said he’d be back next year to race…are they really going to let him? There was no consequence like not being able to run it next year? And you were right on Blaine, when you’re in first place it is a great feeling to get to break that tape and Kolin was robbed of that. 🙁
I’ve seen articles that all say he’ll be back, so I’d assume that if that’s true the director has no problem with him coming back. Which, as the race director, is her prerogative.
I don’t like the idea of people just randomly jumping into a race especially without a bib.
But not everything is black and white…
The race director would have comp’d him but how do you know if you don’t know who to contact. Not all races comp an entry and if the website/registration page doesn’t have info for what they consider elite you may think that they don’t what you apply.
Remember this was only a training run for Scott. I’ve been guilty of this You know someone who can’t run a race but you don’t want a race you just want water support; so you borrow the bib so you don’t feel like you are stealing water from the aid stations. It would smart to jump off of the course, but maybe you just aren’t thinking and you want some food in the finisher’s shoot so you cross the finish line. Hopefully you are in the same age group so you don’t mess things up; But even if it does mess up age group awards… Get over it… If you are so concerned with age group awards than you should require certified proof of age with registrations. There are a lot of runners born in other countries that don’t know when they were born. That’s not their fault. One year they may sign up 34, then the next year 36, then the year after that 33. Unless it’s for masters prize money I wouldn’t worry about it.
Gone are the days of race day/night before registration. Which is one of the things that frustrates me about races like New York; paying $250 for a race 6 months or more in advance; and the big risk that I may not be able to race near peak performance seems ridiculous. For other runners just trying to scrape by paying the $75 or $100 fee may seem like too much to gamble on. It would be nice if every race allowed someone to sign up the night before if they could prove that they have a chance of winning the race.
You said:
So, to make an analogy, if I wanted to go visit some family, but wasn’t going to conduct any business on the trip, and decided I wanted to fly out to see them, then I should be able to just get onto the plane and be given a seat, since I don’t know who to contact to get a ticket? And it’s just a family trip, not a business trip, so it isn’t a big deal?
Just because people bandit races or give away their bibs doesn’t mean that it’s right. Whether they affect awards or not (and our race was an extreme case for sure) it still poses risks if something happens to that runner. The race can still be sued based by or because of that runner, they still can be misidentified if they’re hurt and unconscious or worse, and in this case he didn’t mess up age group awards. He wasn’t in the middle of a nameless, faceless mass…he broke the tape. He knew that he was cheating, and he stole the opportunity from the next guy to win the race. I’ve only won one marathon, and I am glad to have had that opportunity. As seems pretty evident from the Running Times article that Lee linked to, he doesn’t feel any remorse for what he did, he just doesn’t care that he was DQed after the fact.
I certainly agree with your point about how it is very annoying to pay a lot of money for a race so far in advance, but that’s the landscape now for big races. There are still small races with day of registration that don’t cost an arm and a leg, so there are certainly alternatives.
Theresa stated exactly what I was going to say. Kolin may never get the chance to break that tape. I agree and disagree. The only thing I agree with is the fact that people do get injured or something comes up and some races are expensive just to bail out of. If this was the case I see why the bib was handed off. I completely disagree with the fact of slowing down to try and let someone else win. If he really was doing that then he would have done just that and let Kolin win. I think it sucks for all involved because of him second place is really third and so on….. Nobody wins in these situations.
I agree with some points, but not others…
The big issue of “should he be dq’d?” I say yes. He did not follow the rules.
But I disagree with almost all of the analogies of cheating that was used in this article. He didn’t skip portions of the course, he didn’t start early, he didn’t hitch a ride. He simply ran faster than anyone else.
If the circumstances were different, such as, he never had a bib, or made a copy of another runner actually running, so something like that, I’d feel differently. He took a free bib from someone that dropped out, one that was comped in the first place.
Too much is being made by it. I understand that this is one of the frustrations of being a race director, but the reaction that he should be banned for a year is like a wedding planner saying someone shouldn’t be allowed to attend weddings for a year because they’re 17 and snuck a sip of champagne. It’s not the end of the world.
Darrell, I was using those as examples of other rules that could be broken, I was not saying that he did any of those things. If you consider somebody that breaks any of those rules to be cheating, then why not breaking the rule that he did?
I agree that too much is being made of it, but I also don’t like to see people glorifying cheaters, which is what the article I linked to did with that last sentence. And I’m not calling for him to be banned from the race, that’s the race committee’s decision. I was just pointing out that bandits in any of my races can expect a minimum of a 1 year ban because it creates a lot of extra work for me and it poses risks to my ability to put on the race in the future. It may not be the end of the world, but I certainly don’t want to be the person that has to cancel a race with 30 years of history because of a problem that we had with somebody that cheated and shouldn’t have been there.
Below is one of my ‘Daily Running Tips’ that I (@marathonkoach)tweeted to 4300 followers the day after the marathon:.
#Run tip: If you use someone else’s number, lend yours, or run as a bandit, you are damaging the integrity of our sport.
Great point!
I don’t think breaking the rules and cheating are necessarily the same thing, they might be or they might not. And I don’t see how you can call banditing a race, cheating. Breaking the rules certainly, but in the end if you look at it as a pure race he was the fastest runner on that given day. Did he “officially” win? No, because he broke the rules, but he did not cheat.
I certainly see how banditing a race could be a huge headache for RD’s. Maybe a good way to discourage them is to explicitly put in the rules that if you are caught you are banned from the race for 1 year, 5 years?
On the other hand some people just love to break rules and we live in a society where these people are often glorified in our blockbuster Hollywood movies, heck this is America where we love the “rugged individual” the “lone wolf”. So I am guessing bandits are here to stay.
Even the word “bandit” has a slightly romantic ring to it.
On the one hand you’re right (and I know from the other side the admin headache ‘a few last minute changes’ can create). I can see how this guy got drawn in to inappropriate behaviour.
Mind you the story of John Tarrant, means it’s not always a black and white issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tarrant_(athlete)
Agreed. If you want to participate in a competition, you gotta follow the rules. I kinda thought that was basic knowledge.
If they don’t want to pay the entry fee, they can just go run a marathon anytime they want and use a timer to compare themselves to people who actually race. When they see that they ran it faster, they can look themselves in the mirror and say, “Gee, buddy, you are so suave and fast. They should pay YOU to race. You’re the best.”
Hey, is this blog still active? I’m just updating my RSS feeds. I haven’t seen any activity for a few months.
Hi Dana,
The answer to that question is a resounding no and yes!
No, right now there hasn’t been much activity.
Yes, the site will soon be active again, so it’s worth keeping it in your feed.
Basically, my wife went on bed rest for over a month, then our daughter was born, and I took a break from the site to take care of the family. We’re getting into a pretty good routine and my wife is well on her way to recovery and able to be more active again so I wil revitalize the blog by the end of the month (hopefully sooner, but I have a couple of other projects to finish first and since they are currently our sole source of income they are the priority.)
Thanks for coming by and asking!
first i think bandits are not a big deal, big races for the most part have chips behind the bib, if your a bandit and not wearing a bib you dont get a time, beacuase the computer doesnt pick anything up at the finish line. also i have never wasted resources as a bandit runner except water which i could stop run to the side of the road and sip out the many lakes we run by not a big deal. there is no way a RD can ban or stop someone from running on a PUBLIC road. i myself will be running my next race bandit and have a racing bib that proudly displays BANDIT right on the front of it. good luck to the guy that says ” hey you cant run on a public road anymore even though you run that road everyday”
Sure, you can use a public road. But it’s still not appropriate to intentionally bandit a race. Not all races are chip timed; the race I ran this morning had results delayed in the previous year’s running by a few hours because of a couple of bandits. It also puts the race director at risk of losing their insurance for the race, which means that the race can be cancelled. That doesn’t seem at all selfish to you, just so that you can flaunt that you didn’t pay for a race you are running?
if you cross a finish line from a race that does not have chips, and you do not have a number then you dont get a time, therefore you do not interfere with anyone elses time, i always start in the back for respect of the other runners, also if there is going to be a close call and the road is narrow i will let the person that paid take the lead out of respect once again. now onto the reason why i am bandit-ing this current race. 1) the race is 4 days after i come home from active duty so i had no time to register also called RD no more bibs. i have done every race that i could fit in my schedule for years whether i pay or not in memory of my cousin with his father running by my side that died on active duty protecting the very thing i am right now ( your freedom ) and im not about to take a race off simply becuase i was serving my country and everyone in it. that being said i have paid for many of races and also made generous donations to races but im going to get “smoked” for serving a little to long that i was unable to pay in time well those haters can pay for me next time im serving. as far as the insurance goes every runner needs to sign a waiver before they race ( at least in my state) and the ones that dont (bandits) are not covered under insurance and if hurt while runner as a “bandit” will be viewed as a private runner; which means the race is not responsible. now if “bandit ” gets hurt before race thats different but it would be the same as if a “JOE” was walking to his house wich happens to be on race course and gets hurt by race official moving something and didint see JOE and hit him with a “table or watever” so really doesnt make a difference and everyone makes a big deal about it because there pissed cus they had to spend $50. well i have advice for those ppl dont spend the $50 and dont get recognized ( but you will prob get but hurt if they dont get recognized )
The problem with crossing the line in a race that doesn’t have chips is that there are human timers, which means you screw up the times for everybody in the race because they don’t have a bib tag for you but they do have a time for you. I’ve been a timer for many races, and there just isn’t always time to determine who is or isn’t registered for a race as they go over the line; you just click the button and hope your team can figure it out. As I stated in my comment above, last year’s edition of the race I did this year had such a headache that the RD had to ask everybody at the starting line to please step aside and especially not to cross the finish line if they are banditing because of the hassle and delays it caused last year.
As for insurance and being viewed as a private runner, your view of the situation is based on common sense and not on the litigiuos society you are helping to defend (for which I thank you, by the way.) The biggest expense for the RRCA insurance program (which is the non-profit organization that brokers insurance for the majority of races in the US) are bandits who then sue races, race directors, sponsors, volunteers and other runners. The fact that they haven’t filled out the waiver actually makes the situation worse, and has led to the RRCA having to drop certain types of races from being able to be insured. They’ve even been sued by pedestrians who have been hit by cars hours after the race has finished, cleaned up the course, and everybody has left.
I’ll recognize that there are shades of gray such as being out for a run and not realizing that there would be a race going through, but intentionally banditing a race whether you start at the front or back of the pack, stealing resources and time from volunteers, and crossing the finish line are all wrong an unethical. I appreciate your defending my freedom to believe that, and if I were the RD I’d have comped you the bib (and have actually done that in races that I’ve put on when I’ve been able to.) But that still doesn’t make it right for you to put the race’s insurance or permits to put the race on at risk just because you want to run a race but don’t want to or weren’t able to pay for it.