The Boston Marathon attracts a fair number of these runners every year but with the heightened security following last years bombing, running without a race number this year was going to be very difficult.
After the marathon last Monday, one runner got a bit of a shock where she found that there were multiple photos of her 'number' up on a commercial photo website. As you can see in the photo above, all five runners have the number 14285.
The woman in orange on the left is Kara Bonneau and the legitimate owner. The other 4 are so called 'bandits'. It is suspected that her race bib was copied and reprinted after she put it up on the social media website Instagram last week.
This story has been doing the rounds on running sites over the last few days and the organisers said that it happens every year and strongly discourages it...."It's not a security issue–it's just that someone has a fake bib, and they get onto the course and run the race,. We're looking more into the situation. The race was just a couple days ago, and we're still managing the event itself and the 36,000 official runners in the race."
Wonder if it happens on this side of the water?
4 comments:
That hilarious - never thought of people possibly just making their own numbers.
Similar things def happen in Cork, I've heard of a few stories of it (one person in particular who doesn't pay for dearer races but runs without a number or any old number stuck on)
At least bandits #tightgits in the Feet First 5 miler in Killarney on Good Friday!!
Race organisers will have to add their name of race and year of it to race numbers in future. Alot of races have blank race numbers [with just de number on it] enabling bandits to carry to next race and take a chance and enter for free. Having said this, bandits only make up a minor percentage , big majority of us are geniuine.. D
The bandit strikes again - no number last night in the Samsung race!
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