For thousands of competitors, last year’s Great Scottish Run should have been remembered as a day of triumph. But their finishing times and personal bests have now been wiped from the records after the route they ran came up short of the specified distance by 149.7 metres.
The organisers of last October’s half-marathon, one of the biggest events in the Scottish running calendar, have conceded that the route through the parks and streets of Glasgow was wrongly measured.
The mistake, put down to human error, means the winner of the male race, Callum Hawkins, loses the Scottish half-marathon record he set at the event. Hawkins fended off the defending champion, Moses Kipsiro of Uganda, and England’s Chris Thompson, to take the tape in a time of 60 minutes 22 seconds and become the first Scottish winner of the race since 1983.
While some of the 30,000 participants were phlegmatic about the mismeasurement and took it in good humour, others were furious. Some posted demands for a refund of the £33 entry fee on the event’s Facebook page – a request rejected by the race organisers.
One competitor, Claire Perrie, wrote on Facebook: “Absolutely gutted that my hard work to get a new half-marathon PB has resulted in me not having a new PB because the organisers couldn’t be trusted to measure the course properly. I agree with previous comments that we should be entitled to a refund or to free entry to next year’s race.”
Victoria Anderson, another runner, said: “This is all very amateur. 33 quid for almost a half. And to offer guaranteed entry for an event which is always still open for entries till the very last kick is poor. Not impressed. I’ve had better race satisfaction from local village/town races. Never again.”
Andy Mitchelmore, the race director, said the organisers had apologised to both Hawkins and Betsy Saina, the Kenyan runner who won the women’s race in a record time for the event.
“Great Run take responsibility for the miscalculation and we apologise unreservedly to the runners and to the city of Glasgow,” Mitchelmore said. “This was an isolated incident. In the 30 years since the company was formed, more than 4 million people have participated in hundreds of our running events and the distances, which are measured by qualified independent parties, have been correct.”
The company said two issues had contributed to the mismeasurement: a section of the race in Bellahouston park was 50 metres shorter than it was meant to be, and different ways of calculating distances on open and closed roads added to the difference.
The organisers refused to refund race participants but instead offered them entry to the 2017 event, for which they would still have to pay the full entry fee. That race would be far more carefully measured, they promised.
Suspicions that the route was too short were raised soon after the event, with some runners complaining that their race computers and smart watches had shown a shorter distance than the official course length.
The error was confirmed on Monday after four cyclists carrying specialist measuring equipment followed the route early on Sunday morning, accompanied by police outriders who blocked off traffic to ensure they could ride without stopping.