Forum

Disqualification Distress

His name is Marty Dalton. He is a young runner from Earlham, Iowa, running his first marathon. It was a first time for the marathon as well. And the marathon and the young runner were to learn an important lesson when the day was through.

Dalton placed second at the Des Moines Marathon, a little over two minutes behind the winner, Simon Sawe of Albuquerque, and about four minutes ahead of local favorite Julius Rotich of West Des Moines. After the race when interviewed, he said that he had run with a "rabbit". He added :"He was out there to hold me back that first half...It's not like he got out there and did the running for me." The problem is that this "rabbit" was not a registered runner, which is clearly a violation of the USATF rules of competition. Race officials noted that several runners had asked about pace runners, and it was make clear to them that unregistered pace runners were not permitted on the course.

Although Dalton will appeal, I for one fail to see his reasoning. Even if he is new to marathons, he is not new to competition. He says that his rabbit was former Drake teammate Matt Gabrielson. Although it does not say what sport, I will guess that it is track. I doubt that Dalton would have thought it OK if his teammate would have jumped in for the first 8K of a 10K track race at Drake. Unregistered. Had Gabrielson registered for the race, then there is nothing that would have prevented him from running with Dalton.

I've competed against aided runners before. In one marathon, a woman's husband met her at various points with drinks and assistance. In another, a woman was paced by a friend on a bicycle. And then there was the Russian woman whose coach met her at various points and yelled things in Russian, and even tried to give her some gloves. At this point, we told her that that was not allowed. It just sort of got to us after a while. It is not that they are not running the whole race, or that their helpers are running for them. It is just that it is an unfair advantage which is also against the rules.

I have a different disqualification story, one that will give you nightmares if you have the racing nightmare dreams like I do. It was the San Diego Marathon. I think the year was 1999, but I am not sure. Anyway, the race crosses the train tracks twice. The rules state that you will stop for trains, but it is timed so that this is not a problem for the front runners. However, on this particular race day, something happened, and the gate to the train started to come down right as the lead group of women were approaching. There were maybe four of them in this pack, along with other runners. Well, one woman went through (prolific marathon racer Roxi Erickson) and three stayed behind. This was only in the third mile of the race. Imagine stopping in the third mile of a race. Everyone catches up to you. You lose your warm up. You have to jog in place for maybe 30, 50 seconds? And then when the train is through, you still have to wait for the gate to come up. Although some probably won't. It will bug you. But what must have been going through Roxi's mind for the remaining 23 miles. Was that legal? Will they protest? Should I have stopped? When she finished, as she feared, she was disqualified. I believe she lost $2000 for this mistake. I think that the course of the race has since changed.

You may have some views on this.Have you even protested another runner? Have you ever been the subject of a protest? Are there some rules which need to be added? If nothing else, review the rules of competition so that you don't find yourself in the unfortunate position of defending a disqualification.

Past forum articles

Race horror story
History of women running
Running with Luke