An old problem

Press, 29 April 1981, Page 26

An old problem

Despite the precautions against, another Rosie Ruiz incident in this year's Boston Marathon, a male runner jumped into the end of the race course before the official winner crossed the finish line, a marathon official says. The man, said Scott McFetridge, "was ushered out (by security personnel) so fast his head was spinning."

The intruder never was identified, but his presence was evidence that there was no foolproof way to prevent such intrusions, said Mr McF’etridge, supevisor of officials for the race and administrative assistant to the marathon director, Will Cloney.

“Nothing could ever be done to prevent that (intruder),” said Mr McFetridge. “Will has been quoted that we try our very best, but you cannot sensibly control 42km,” Mr McFetridge added. "You’d have to have snow fences or you’d have to have National' Guardsmen posted the entire length of the course. It's just a physical impossibility.” In last year's race, Ruiz began running near the end and was the first woman to cross the finish line, marathon officials said. Jacqueline Gareau later was declared the winner of the women's division.

Nothing of that magnitude occurred in last week's Boston Marathon. Two runners without official numbers joined the race about 3km beyond the starting line, said Mr McFetridge. “We knew exactly what happened on Rosie," Mr McFetridge said.“ She jumped in about a kilometre from the finish because we had spectators who reported seeing her. There was a little gap in the crowd at. that point and this apparently was where she took the opportunity to jump in.” Several changes were made this year to keep people from jumping into the race.

Before this year, there were six official and four unofficial checkpoints at which marathon personnel monitored runners who passed those points. The official checkpoints were obvious to the runners and had digital clocks. Mr McFetridge said. The unofficial ones had no clocks and were not obvious, he added. This year, all were made official 'so that legitimatelyentered runners knew of the surveillance and would be discouraged from joining the race after the start, Mr McFetridge said.

He also said an electronic system was added to detect such runners. He and Mr Cloney have refused to describe it.