Whoa....you have trained your ass off for 3 months, ran your 42km, got your finisher medal and worn you finisher Tee proudly and then suddenly you find some disgruntled president of an local athletic association screamed that the race is ILLEGAL.
This is exactly what happened last Friday on Daily Express when the president of Sabah Amateur Athletic Association accused the Borneo International Marathon organisers of running an illegal race and demanded that all the money collected to be returned to the sponsors.
You can download a scanned copy of newspaper clipping HERE. But here’s a warning, reading it may make you vomit your digesting energy gel and blood because the silly remarks and unfounded claims, like there is A rule that a runner needs 6 weeks to recover for the next marathon. (Insert eye rolling ceremony here)
Well, technically SAAA can say that the Race was ‘illegal’.... In Malaysia we have a Sports Development Act 576, where it is stated, that every international event needs a support letter from Ministry of Sports and a Licence of the Sports Commissioner. If the organisers fail, we heard the penalty is probably 2 years jail (Yikes!) or RM 5,000.
So, since BIM had the word “International” right smack in the middle of their race name, the organisers need those letters/licenses. You only get those with a sanction letter of MAAU or in that case SAAA.
But the whole thing with ‘illegal etc.’ will have another background we assume... For sanctions there is always big a$$ money involved. We assume they (Organisers & SAAA) did not find a solution.
But hey, why only wait 4 years to make this accusation, right? BIM has been around for 4 years now and steadily getting lots of attention from avid runner in and around Malaysia. As the race gets bigger, I supposed the ringing on the cash register is getting louder too! So it is very likely that that some people are trying to get their dirty lil paws into the pie.
Anyway, to make it short by quoting a race director of another marathon who wants to remain anonymous: Driving on the highway with 130km/h instead of 100km/h is also illegal ;).
Are you an avid marathoner? Do you have something to say about this issue? Please leave a comment, we'd love to hear from you.
5 comments:
done lots of illegal stuff in my lifetime liow, but doing an "illegal full marathon" together with 3 thousands other people is my first time... and the experience is "HOT" !!! :)
SAAU want money. BIM as far as i was told, heard and read, was done much better than some pseudo marathon in peninsular malaysia!
I say SAAU is the culprit!
Is marathon running classified as " Athletics "?
Malaysia Law are so confusing and even the Kerajaan organised a lot of illegal races in whole of Malaysia.....which we don't know at all.
Sabah Tourism have given their support, and listed BIM is one of the interesting event in Malaysia tourism program. Should BIM Organiser need to report to the Ministry of Sport since the MoS officers knew what is going on in Malaysia???
BIM is not earning much profit like Std Chartered KL Marathon. It is a small scale. The BIM Organiser deserve the hard earning money...should not require to return to the sponsors. If YES, better return to the runners. We ran so hard....the Organiser did their hard work.....What does Ministry of Sport do???
Last update on this issue from Borneo Marathon organiser. As expected the allegation was fuled by greed and jealousy. Tsk! Tisk! Tsk!
http://borneomarathon.com/2011/home/news-general/borneo-marathon-non-sanctioning/
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