Podium Of Infamy
After the fiasco that was the StanChart KL Marathon, runners in this country were once again slapped in the face by appalling race management. Read the comments on the recent Ipoh "International" Run here and here.
It's general knowledge now that the organizers of the KL Marathon bungled in the bib distribution, timing (a recent case surfaced on the 3rd Malaysian women finisher who looked deceptively dry and inappropriately dressed - perchance a local Rosie Ruiz?), and so on and so forth. Now we have another group of organizers to join Octagon on the Podium of Infamy.
I won't mince my words below but things have gotten so bad that it warrants a strong message.
Some race organizers have proven year after year that they have no intention of improving. We as operators of our blogs reserve the right to ascertain which event we want to feature. The event owners aren't paying us anyway. Previously we’re just doing the runners and organizers a favour by including their races in our blog calendars. But if their races suck we shouldn’t continue to “help” these organizers. Instead we should mark them down as black-listed races – call the category “Proven Disorganized Races”. If we continue to help provide free advertising for these scumbags, we’re just condoning bad events and putting our fellow runners and friends - or worst, inexperienced beginners - at risk. So we bloggers should act responsibly NOT to feature such races in future. We should also be aware of the possibility that unless we start boycotting these lousy events, organizers will continue to set up events as a way to suck up to the politicians who arrive late in their tracksuits. All at the runners’ expense. Are you still willing to be used as pawns?
I've time and again warned organizers who seek to put together races without much thought of the responsibility it comes with, that the success and failure of the race will be shouted across the blogs. And lately we've seen 2 classic examples of failures being lambasted by many.
Let this be a warning to future organizers. We runners have had enough of self-serving and irresponsible event management. And the voice of discontent will reach a crescendo if such feedback go unheeded.
It's general knowledge now that the organizers of the KL Marathon bungled in the bib distribution, timing (a recent case surfaced on the 3rd Malaysian women finisher who looked deceptively dry and inappropriately dressed - perchance a local Rosie Ruiz?), and so on and so forth. Now we have another group of organizers to join Octagon on the Podium of Infamy.
I won't mince my words below but things have gotten so bad that it warrants a strong message.
Some race organizers have proven year after year that they have no intention of improving. We as operators of our blogs reserve the right to ascertain which event we want to feature. The event owners aren't paying us anyway. Previously we’re just doing the runners and organizers a favour by including their races in our blog calendars. But if their races suck we shouldn’t continue to “help” these organizers. Instead we should mark them down as black-listed races – call the category “Proven Disorganized Races”. If we continue to help provide free advertising for these scumbags, we’re just condoning bad events and putting our fellow runners and friends - or worst, inexperienced beginners - at risk. So we bloggers should act responsibly NOT to feature such races in future. We should also be aware of the possibility that unless we start boycotting these lousy events, organizers will continue to set up events as a way to suck up to the politicians who arrive late in their tracksuits. All at the runners’ expense. Are you still willing to be used as pawns?
I've time and again warned organizers who seek to put together races without much thought of the responsibility it comes with, that the success and failure of the race will be shouted across the blogs. And lately we've seen 2 classic examples of failures being lambasted by many.
Let this be a warning to future organizers. We runners have had enough of self-serving and irresponsible event management. And the voice of discontent will reach a crescendo if such feedback go unheeded.
Labels: Proven Disorganized Races, Rants
posted by Jamie Pang at
11:52 PM
5 Comments:
Jamie - you said it best. Power of internet could very well help everyone to decide what is best. If one person says it, then it might be some malice towards that party, but if 101 says the same thing, something got to be wrong.
SCKLM after the public apology, i don't think they will buck up. Octagon has been doing it year in year out, so to use the excuse that they don't know what to expect as this is the "first race", is utter bullshit.
As for the Ipoh run fiasco, local council should just stick to rubbish collection, leave the races to people that know better, the racers themselves.
By
TriStupe, at 12:13 AM
A rating system voted collectively by runners is a good way to distinguish the good and the bad races - something like RunnersWorld.
By
Yap! It's 3088.., at 1:26 AM
Good idea to create a list of Podium of Infamy. This will hopefully open the eyes of the organizers who "shiok sendiri"..year after year thinking that they have done a good job.
A rating system is great idea (0/1-star to 5-stars)for all the major runs, so as to also "reward" the ones that are well organised.
By
Boone, at 9:54 AM
hey there! got refered to u by some friend.. ahha cos i was talking about running n all.. I join the recent kl marathon btw.. hehe
now still training 5km.. since im still new
By
smashpOp, at 12:49 AM
SmashPop: thanks for visiting. Good job on your achievement. Keep it up. For resources, there's a lot on the web or you can go back to the archives of this blog or the runnersmalaysia website. o join us for the weekly saturday runs.
By
Jamie Pang, at 7:55 AM
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