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A botched racecourse that was longer than it should have been for the Edmonton Marathon has cost 13 runners a chance to compete in the prestigious Boston Marathon.
Edmonton organizers said in a Thursday statement the Boston Marathon will accept the finishing times of 92 competitors to qualify but not the 13.
The Aug. 16 race in Edmonton was about two-thirds of a kilometre longer than necessary.
The organizers initially stood by their calculated course length but simultaneously held a review that found they had miscalculated it, citing an issue with a mapped detour.
The Boston Athletics Association, which runs the Boston Marathon, had said even though the runners in Edmonton had to go farther, they would be eligible if their final times still met the Boston qualifying time.
However, it said it would not accept race times from Edmonton that had been adjusted to accommodate the extra distance, ultimately leading to the 13 rejections.
Organizers in Edmonton say they will be contacting the 13 people and working with Athletics Canada to review the course certification process.
“It is evident the community that gathers through this event is resilient, passionate, kind and deserving of nothing less than our very best,” said Tom Keogh, Edmonton Marathon race director, in a statement Thursday.
“We commit that this distance miscalculation does not happen again.”
The Edmonton Marathon race director has apologized for an error in accounting for detours that added over 600 metres to both the marathon and half-marathon courses. One runner failed to qualify for the Boston Marathon because the added distance extended his finishing time.
Before, during and after the event, several racers said their own distance calculators put the racecourse longer than the regulation 42.2 kilometres for the full marathon and 21.1 kilometres for the half marathon.
Race officials confirmed in the days after that the course was 674.7 metres longer than required.
Despite the added length, the Edmonton Marathon said two course records were broken in both the men’s and women’s marathons.
