A miscalculated race route for the Edmonton Marathon, which turned out to be longer than intended, has resulted in 13 participants missing the opportunity to qualify for the esteemed Boston Marathon.
On Thursday, the Edmonton Marathon organizers announced that the Boston Marathon will accept the finishing times of 92 runners for qualification, but the times of the 13 affected participants will not be recognized.
The race held on August 16 in Edmonton was approximately two-thirds of a kilometer longer than it should have been.
Initially, the organizers defended their measured course length, but later conducted a review that revealed a miscalculation due to an issue with a mapped detour.
The Boston Athletics Association, which manages the Boston Marathon, indicated that even though Edmonton runners had to traverse a longer distance, they would still qualify if their finishing times met the Boston qualifying standards.
However, the association clarified that it would not accept any adjusted times from Edmonton that accounted for the additional distance, which ultimately led to the disqualification of the 13 runners.
Organizers in Edmonton plan to reach out to the 13 runners and collaborate with Athletics Canada to reevaluate the course certification procedure.
In a statement on Thursday, Tom Keogh, the race director for the Edmonton Marathon, expressed, “It is clear that the community brought together through this event is resilient, passionate, kind, and deserves nothing short of our utmost effort.”
He added, “We are committed to ensuring that this distance miscalculation does not occur 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.
Numerous runners reported before, during, and after the race that their personal distance trackers indicated that the course exceeded the standard 42.2 kilometers for the full marathon and 21.1 kilometers for the half marathon.
Race officials confirmed shortly after the event that the course was indeed 674.7 meters longer than required.
Despite the extra distance, the Edmonton Marathon announced that new records were set in both the men’s and women’s full marathon events.
