Angry Two Oceans Marathon runners cut-off from the race. Pic: Screengrab
Cape Town - The Two Oceans Marathon board has extended an unreserved apology to runners impacted at the 42.2km cut-off, and says it will be contacting participants directly in due course.
The conclusion of last month’s 56km ultra-marathon left some runners disgruntled and claiming they were wrongfully prevented from completing the race.
Five weeks on, the board, along with the race manager, said yesterday that they had concluded their investigation into the matter.
“As referenced in the previous statement, the cut-off time of 10.46 was stated on the Two Oceans Marathon website; however, we are aware that on one area of the website, the time had not been updated, and stated a time of 10.50. This was an oversight, for which we take responsibility,” the board said.
“Our investigation into the information in the digimag revealed that two versions were available, one live version including the cut-off information and a version that was downloadable that did not include the cut-off information.”
The board said race organisers should ensure that all distributed information is accurate and consistent.
“The Two Oceans Marathon NPC board deeply regrets this conflicting information and has gained valuable insights regarding due diligence.
“Although the cut-off at the 42.2km mark was set at 10.46, and this was the intended cut-off time, which was correctly executed, this will be revisited and reconsidered for the 2025 edition.
“We are in the process of identifying the runners affected by the cut-off and will be contacting them directly.”
Affected runner Pierre Kleinsmith was not pleased with the apology.
“It either distracts from the truth or they just did not use a mathematician to do their numbers for them.
“They simply cut people off at the incorrect time and I suspect they know that,” he said.
byron.lukas@inl.co.za
Cape Argus
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