A small group of elite runners take off at the head of the pack. The rest are released about 50 seconds later. (Photo 1 courtesy of Spectrum Worldwide)
Orchard Road, Sunday, December 1, 2013 – At the 5am flag off for the 2013 Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore on Sunday morning, a small group of elite runners were allowed to flag off first. This elite group consisted mostly of foreign runners with a few of our local runners. The masses were only allowed to follow about 50 seconds later.
Some of the local elite runners who finished in the top 10 said they have never encountered this segregation before at the start of a race.
Local runners Mok Ying Ren and Wang Zhiyong were part of this elite group that had a 50s head start. In an act of sportsmanship, they waited for the rest of the local elite field to catch up with them. This is significant because both Mok and Zhiyong were competing in the local and not the open category against the foreign elites. In other words, they were waiting for their category rivals to catch up, something the rules did not compel them to do.
Derek Li, who eventually finished sixth among the locals, said: “Mok and Zhiyong both slowed to wait. Mok practically stopped in the middle of Orchard Road to wait for us.”
“Everyone was shouting at the security personnel who kept telling us it (final positions) was based on nett time which obviously it isn’t. I think the Africans who didn’t get elite spots were especially frantic.”
Gun time is used to determine final positions and at elite levels, 50 seconds can mean a lot.
At the Boston Marathon, the start will have different corrals based on time, but the first wave will usually have over 100 runners, so anyone able to run a sub-2:50 marathon will be in that wave. There is no further segregation of elites at the front.
In an ironic twist to the tale, Chelimo Kipkemoi, 36, of Kenya, was not in the elite start. Despite that, he overcame the 50-second disadvantage to win the marathon in 2:15:00, 26 seconds ahead of his fellow countryman, Eliud Kiptanui.
If you’ve seen such a start before in an international marathon, please share with us in the comments section.
Full Marathon Singapore Men (Top 12)*
1st Mok Ying Ren – 02:54:17.90
2nd Alex Ong Seng Lee – 02.54.56.28
3rd Soon Suan Boon – 02:57:53.31
4th Gordon Lim – 02:58:07.51
5th Ning Wenlong – 03:02:29.55
6th Derek Li – 3:06:20.12
7th Andy Neo – 03:09:36.76
8th Colin Chua – 03:10:22.81
9th Rukhaizat Rapsan – 03:10:37.36
10th Colin Tung – 03:10:48.72
11th Ho Ghim Khoon – 03:10:58.27
12th M Rameshon – 03:11:08.63
*N.B. The organisers reinstated Alex Ong and Derek Li in the standings after an initial disqualification. They are now 2nd and 6th respectively.
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Hi, I’ve been following elite athletics for over 15 years. According to my recollection, I think chicago 2008 or 2007 had such a start where some pretty fast runners were left to start sometime later. In the end I think one of the kenyans by the name of Wesley Korir was stranded in the 2nd wave but came charging hard in the final section of the course to beat those elites who started way out in front of him. I’m not sure if he won because I cannot really remember, but I know it was documented in running news that his net time beat most other elite runners’ net times when his gun time was clearly much slower than the rest. Later is was also debated if he should be eligible for elite prize money since he didn’t register as elite but raced otherwise. So I think it is not uncommon to find this wave trend in international marathon races
Thanks for sharing, MA.
For the local races, prizes are only given out based on gun times.