By Les Tan
Long lines just to sign up for a 10km road race but 23% didn’t finish. (Photo courtesy of organisers)
We’re curious.
The Nike+ Human Race 10K sold out in days. Then the organisers opened up another 500 slots which were snapped up immediately.
Long lines outside the Nike store at Wisma Atria signalled a popular race. We were told by the organisers that 10,000 runners started the race.
Why then were there only 7,877 finishers, according to the Nike site?
That’s a 21% dropout rate.
Let us know why you or your friends didn’t run on race day. Or if there were other reasons for dropping out during the race.
Like we said, we’re curious to know.
REDpoll
Loading ...
In response to vivian’s comment, I think that’s a great idea. It would cut down costs a lot too!
Just did the Burnie 10k in Tasmania, which bills itself as ‘Australia’s premiere 10k race’. No t-shirt, no goodie-bag, the race-expo was a little mobile truck on the day itself. The entry fee was something like $25 I think.
City 2 Surf was similar, (and in fact has no prize money, just a trip to another race). More expensive race fees, but the road closures in a major city and shuttle buses from the finish (14ks away from the start) may account for that.
Both these races still attract top class talent. First female in Burnie 10k ran 32:55, top 7 men just over 30min, a “slowish” race for them with the 2nd half into a massive headwind.
I think that while the completion rate is important, we should not forget the most important element is any sports event, which is safety.
Perhaps there can be a count at the start of the race, to see how many actually made the attempt but could not complete because their body is not really or they push themselves too hard at the start etc.
Shouldn’t be a big issue given the number of people that need to go through security gates at the major events.
maybe next time they should just give out the t shirts AFTER the race like aviva 70.3, so people would get medals and the t-shirt at the same time. would be interesting to find out the ‘absentee’ rates for other big races in SG like stanchart and OSIM tri.
hi les, i am sure alot of people sign up just to get the “goodie” bag. We should organised a race and have no goodie bag ( a no frills run). We will then know the REAL reason why people sign up for a race!
@vivian: Yeah. That would be a good idea. This free t shirt business – I mean, how many t shirts do people want? Like their cupboard isn’t already full of race tees they will probably never wear again, right?
@hapychineseboy – giving out AFTER the race is a good idea. At least people commit to doing the race although it still won’t stop people from showing up, not running, then collecting their tshirt.
The SHAPE Run suffers from the same problem – people are attracted by the goodie bag. Whether they run is another matter altogether.
Talking about tees, someone just told me that the marathon finisher tee was available for sale at some adidas warehouse sale. Now how silly is that? After sweating and earning that t shirt, somebody can come along and buy it at some warehouse sale. Insult to runners.
For last year’s (2008) FULL marathon, about 15,000 signed up but only 11,7xx? finished.
I wonder if this is a consistent thing across big races?
I ran Sydney’s City 2 Surf this year, and there was all this hype in the leadup that 76,254 people entered, making it the largest race in the world.
There were only 62,754 finishers though, so not quite the biggest in the end!
@renuka: In 2008, 15,000 signed up to do the full marathon but only 11700 finished. So perhaps it is not surprising. Have to cut through the PR hype to see how people actually showed up sometimes. I think taking 20% off the top is a good indication of actual numbers on the ground.
Could have been 7,878 finishers… But alarm clock failed me.. 🙁
I’m sorry but if people actually signed up just for the t shirt then thats just stupid. you’re taking spots away from people who actually want to RUN. Absolutely ridiculous.
none of the above 🙂
reason: Was given a free entry as I’d bought the Nike+ Sportband. However as I was overseas for the run and none of my friends wanted to use my free entry so I signed up and collected the free t-shirt, otherwise I would have ran if i was in SG.
@The Rhino: Thanks for filling in the blanks, Rhino. : ) You’re helping to satisfy my curiosity because I’ve noticed a trend of signups not matching finisher numbers and the difference is large.