Some showed frustration following Sunday’s NYAIS championships after an extra loop was inadvertently added to the 5K course at Van Cortlandt Park, extending race by almost half a mile.
During the boys varsity race, the first of the day, the boys were mistakenly directed to complete another loop before heading into the trails which added 0.4 of a mile to the makeshift 3.1-mile course. Collegiate coach and meet director George Calano said it was just a misunderstanding.
“Everyone ran the same distance,” he said. “We were running what we thought was the PSAL 5K course. There was a misunderstanding about the course they run.”
Instead of running one loop with another half of a loop that put the runners on the traditional 5K course – before the construction that forced the Foot Locker Northeast Regional to move to Sunken Meadow Park in Long Island – the leaders in the boys race were sent to run the first loop twice. The girls race had gone off minutes after. Packer-Collegiate’s Eddie Owens won the boys race, at 3.5 miles, in 19:02.19 and was four minutes behind the girls race so meet management decided to send the girls race through the same incorrect loop to assure the leaders in the boys race won’t catch the back end of the girls race.
“I think what the confusion had been was that people said two loops. But it’s really one and a half so it turned out that we ended up running two and a half.”
Calano’s favored Collegiate squad won the team title with 29 points. Owens was also favored to win. Calano also said that runners, for the most part, finished where they would have been projected to. He added that the junior varsity races were also run at the 3.5-mile distance so that their performances could properly be compared to the varsity races. Plus, he said many of the coaches were unsure what the proper 5K course and they all had to deal with the same conditions.
“I felt bad for my team,” he said. “I’m not happy either but what are you going to do.”
By Christopher Hunt
Some showed frustration following Sunday’s NYAIS championships after an extra loop was inadvertently added to the 5K course at Van Cortlandt Park, extending race by almost half a mile.
