Leading runners led astray during half marathon forced to beg for money to get train back

Former Asian medalists Suresh Kumar Patel, Inderjit Patel and Soji Mathew got the shock of their lives on Sunday while leading in the Bengaluru half marathon in Karnataka, India, when the pilot vehicle reportedly missed a U-turn, leading to the trio being forced to abandon the race. Suresh, who finished sixth in the recent Asian Games, and Soji, a former Asian cross-country champion, finally had to beg morning joggers for Rs 20 to enable them to hop on to the metro from the Indiranagar station and return to MG Road.

"There were no officials on the road where we supposed to take a U-turn (at 16km). We were following the pilot vehicle and we had covered around 20 kilometres in one hour as we were going at a pace of 2 minutes, 59 seconds per kilometre. We were hoping to finish soon when the officials asked us to turn back. At that point there was no point in continuing the race and we decided to stop," Inderjit Patel said. "Last Sunday I won the Delhi CRPF half marathon in 1 hour, 11 minutes braving hot conditions.



"I was hoping to do under 1:03 minutes. I'm not bothered about missing the prize money but it is disappointing that we had to suffer this humiliation," Patel said. Soji, a former champion in Asian cross country, was dejected that he couldn't climb the podium. "Suresh Kumar, who came 6th in Incheon in 10,000m, was in the lead and I was trailing by some 50m with Inderjit behind me. We came down the flyover (Domlur) and were going further along when a few officials came and told us to turn back. Suresh and I stopped there. We had to beg for twenty rupees as we didn't have any money with us.

"Luckily, some morning joggers helped us and also guided us to the nearest metro station," said Soji Mathew. Soji said immediately after Inderjit also stopped the race realizing the goof-up. "Probably after the 15km mark we had doubts whether the route was correct as we saw only the full marathon hoardings. But then we were following the lead vehicle and at least nine of the runners lost their way," he added. Third place winner BC Tilak also admitted that he went wrong at one place. "I ran at least 1 km extra," he said. An official with the Elite athletes said the organizers admitted their mistake.