Sparemayor
Member
What’s the point of folding the number? is it so cameras don’t pick it up in race photos ?
Also still don’t get why she ran London marathon without a proper chip/bib in the first place ? has that been explained?
Yes, folding the race number was an effort to avoid photographers. She's not as up with the technology of the running world as she thinks she is though, because they have clearly used facial recognition technology for a while now, too. In fact, London Marathon's photo provider, for both that event and the other events they put on like the London 10,000, allow you to upload a selfie that will then be used to find your race pics. There's a debate about the general ethics/safety implications of this, but regardless, the tech is there. Once they parse your race number with your face, hiding your race number is pointless, by design. It's so that if your race number is hidden by another athlete during the race, they can still find you and sell you your photos.
Come on, Kate. You work in the industry. We know this.
I certainly have never done it, and I've had plenty of bibs with the number attached to the back before. I've never tried, but I feel like tearing it off could damage the fabric of the bib. I guess she was careful? And no, I've never, ever, in many years of racing and sport in general, heard of an athlete doing this before. Maybe that's on me, but if someone does know of examples of this being done just because, not with the intention to cheat, do let us know...I don’t get that either, London marathon last year had the chip on the back of the number so she would have to go to a lot of effort to remove it. She said ‘some runners do this’ or something but I literally don’t know any runner that would do that?! Unless planning to cheat.