Sprinting at the Wrong Moment?

The 2006 Great Eastern-Pacesetter 30km certificate of completion looks colourful and unique. One of the high-tech features is that a runner’s photo while crossing the finishing line is printed as part of the certificate. The paper quality is good as the entire piece of A4-sized paper is of photographic material.

But there is something wrong with this certificate (refer to photos below). Are you able to detect it? The runner crossing the finishing is not yours truly although the name and other details were accurate. I was behind A0019. Please do not get me wrong, there was no fault by the official photographer or computer system that automated the printing of certificates.

Crossing the Finishing Line

On race day, when A0019 suddenly sprinted and overtook me unexpectedly just a few meters before the finishing line, I knew things could have gone wrong. I was taken aback with his sudden move where I was positioning myself and put on the best smiles for photos shot.

One may argue that a runner has the right to overtake another runner from gun off until crossing the finishing point – any moment. I agree with the statement if this applies to top runner vying for top positions. But at 118th position (in all categories), there was no difference when a runner was sprinting at the last few meter to overtake another runner.

Protocol

A runner need to know the protocol and the mutual understanding when crossing the finishing line: when the runners in front slowed down, it is with great respect to other fellow runners that the runners behind slowed down accordingly and not jump queue. Sometime, the queue is created while waiting for officials to record runners’ details, while the clock is ticking.

Just like in studies, a person’s comprehension of a subject matter is reshaped with years of hard work and not the last minute “burning of midnight lamp”.

What to do with my Certificate?

Weng empathized with me and told me an alternative: take any photo of mine taken by Club’s official photographer and paste my photo over it. Sound workable but ...

I hope that the sudden sprint by A0019 did not cause a chain-reaction error that the preceding or following certificates did not synchronize photos with names. It is possible too that his certificate was printed with another runner’s photo.

Well, the 2007 Great Eastern - Pacesetters 30km Run is this Sunday morning. Wishing you an enjoyable run; remember to wave your hands, put on your mega-watt smiles.

By KC :-))