Google+ Running in Cork, Ireland: Controversy in London Marathon as wheelchair athlete collides with elite runners...

Monday, April 22, 2013

Controversy in London Marathon as wheelchair athlete collides with elite runners...

The London Marathon was held last Sunday, the 21st of April in glorious sunny conditions with a record crowd watching along the route.

In the men's race, Ethiopian Tsegaye Kebede won in a time of 2:06:04, beating the 2011 champion Emmanuel Mutai into second place.

The womens race was however a lot more controversial. When the elite women approached a water station at about the 15 kms mark, the Olympic champion Tiki Gelana collided with one of the wheelchair athletes, Canadian Josh Cassidy. Even though Gelana managed to rejoin the race, the collision obviously had it's toll as she finally finished in 16th place in a time of 2:36:55. The 2012 Olympic silver medalist Priscah Jeptoo from Kenya who avoided the incident went on to win in a time of 2:20:15.

In a statement after the race, the organisers put up this statement which basically said that no-one was to blame. In a post race interview however, the wheelchair athlete said this in an interview..."It's something I have mentioned before. I don't know who's responsible but every year we come to overtake the women, there's 10 chairs going at 20mph and the poor women are scrambling to find their feet. I have a brand new $2,000 pair of wheels that are damaged, who's going to pay for them? Things have to change. The safest thing would be to have the chairs start first because one of these years a woman is going to have a leg broken, a career ruined. It's just not worth having this programme if the races are going to suffer.". Others have also called for an earlier separate start for the wheelchair athletes.

Entries for the 2014 London Marathon open on the 29th of April.

Coverage of the collision below...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

no one to blame? kinda looks like she ran straight in front of him, No?

Pat said...

I was wondering about this alright - to me it looked like the wheelchair athletes took a racing line that was between the female athletes and there water stop. I don't really know enough about wheelchair racing to know if this was wrong or not but I do think that the athlete Galena should have been entitled to move across to get a drink at a nominated drinks station. Also in addition is the duty of care not with the person coming from behind? either way it sounds like the wheelchair athletes had flagged this as a problem long before but the organisers weren't listening.

Anonymous said...

Wheelchair athlete totally to blame he is coming from behind and he can see whats in front of him so he should have been on the otherside of the road. Either they have their own race or they are not there at all. Would you hold a bike race and running race at the same time on the same streets?

robert said...

why dont the wheelchair athietes start first,

Anonymous said...

Water stations at opposite sides of the road for wheelchair athletes and runners would make sense maybe??

Kat said...

I blame it on poor organizing. In a lot of races, many wheelchair racers start first before the runners to avoid this issue.

Josh didn't have time to stop when she went in front of him.

Either wheelchair racers start first and/or have one side for runners and other for wheelchairs. This could have been seriously worse!