Organizers of the Edmonton Marathon acknowledged they failed to measure the course length correctly and added nearly 700 metres, after denying there was an issue.
More than 10,000 runners hit the pavement on Aug. 16 for the 35th annual event, which included full marathon, half marathon, 10K, 5K, and 1K fun runs.
However, some athletes questioned the distances of the full and half marathons—which they were using to qualify for the prestigious Boston Marathon—prompting race director Tom Keogh to defend the measurement process and the route’s correct certification and setup on race day.
On Aug. 18, Keogh issued a second statement on the Edmonton Marathon website, saying he made his first comments with the best available information. Since then, with participants and elite athletes sending in messages, officials pursued a detailed review of the certified course’s physical measurement and found it was 674.7 metres longer than thought….