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The Bengaluru marathon left quite a few runners with disappointment on their faces. The marathon, which took place on Sunday in Bangalore, had a route designed for both the 21km half marathon and the 42km full marathon. However, to the shock of many runners, their routes were not as clear as they were in the map.
Runners get lost on the route
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, some of the runners got lost in the course and even had to borrow money to take the metro towards the finishing line.
Indrajeet Patel and two other runners with him were ahead of thousands of other participants and were running at their desired pace. But with 15km under their belt, the three runners realised that something was not right. They had missed a turn and had gone over 4km in the wrong direction.
The absence of race officials resulted in the runners carrying on in the wrong direction without being aware of the correct route. “There weren’t enough race marshals to guide us through the course. We couldn’t find any event organizers nearby,” Patel said.
Some lost runners asked the people on the streets for directions and even borrowed money to take the metro to get back on course. “We borrowed 30 rupees from a few morning joggers to take a metro train to reach the station closest to the finishing line,” Soji Matthew, another lost runner, said.
Where does the blame lie?
The blame seems to lie squarely with the organising team. A medial vehicle that was a part of the team leading the race missed the u-turn, and people behind the vehicle kept following it until it was too late. “The mistake happened because a media vehicle that was part of the team leading the race missed the turn,” Dharmendra Kumar, head of the organising firm Protons Sports and Fitness Pvt. said.
Since the marathon was telecast live, a lot of runners were aided by the television crew vans. Instead of the signs, the runners looked up to see if the news crew were present to be reassured that they were on the right track.
Later, the organizing committee reviewed the recordings of the incident and admitted their mistake. Cash remuneration amounting to Rs. 1,50,000 was given to four of the affected runners, since they were among the leaders up to the point where they diverged from the route. The organizers also apologized for the faux pas and resolved to never allow such a mistake to happen again, bringing some relief to the disappointed runners.
Traffic could not be contained
Adding to the woes of the marathon, the highly impatient Bangalore traffic became impossible to be contained. The marathon turned into a bit of an obstacle race, as cars and two-wheelers took apart the barriers and entered the running route. The participants had to face heckling from the bystanders, in addition to the fact that their pace was compensated in their efforts to avoid being hit.
