Dublin Marathon moves to lottery entries!

ligerdub

solidasarock wrote: »

I was just talking about great past decisions by the DCM management.


Was the year of the disastrous Donabate half marathon the same year they rented out half the marathon expo one year to Scientology?

Yes. 2017.

BeepBeep67

Itziger wrote: »

I know they'd strongly disagree and they have a right to an opinion. I'm just a bit old school in my way of thinking.

National Champs are National Champs. Find the top 3 male and female runners at any given time/year in the country. Some of this AC stuff just seems to have gone too far.

I know a guy who wears a rainbow jersey out cycling 'cos he came first in the O55 Long Form Duathlon World Champs. There were about 6 participating. A colleague tells me about his sister who does Ironman events at a WORLD level. She often podiums. It helps that there are sometimes fewer than 4 in the AC!!

I like to see the Scullions of this world compete and when it's my time to run I do my best too but I don't think we can be drawing too many comparisons.

A quick glance shows there were 154 F35 teams and 118 F50 teams, so it's not a show up and get a medal sceanario.

Singer

solidasarock wrote: »

Was the year of the disastrous Donabate half marathon the same year they rented out half the marathon expo one year to Scientology?

"half the marathon expo":

https://twitter.com/aidancurran17/status/924284124688502784

Singer

corcaigh07 wrote: »

If someone refuses an entry from the lottery, does that 15 euro just “disappear”?

No.

http://kbcdublinmarathon.ie/2020-entry-process/

What happens to the 30% of my fee that I do not get back if I seek a refund?

30% of your fee is to cover the administration cost of processing.

PhilOssophy

corcaigh07 wrote: »

If someone refuses an entry from the lottery, does that 15 euro just “disappear”?

I sure hope so and think more than that should disappear.

Slow_Runner

Don't see much of an issue with lottery system itself if it is over subscribed, based on current numbers there is a high chance of getting in unlike London and it is the fairest system imo. I would charge full amount for successful applicants tough instead of €15 to stop duplicate entries.
Wrt the national championship however this really needs to be looked at, an AI race needs to be open to all club members to enter, if not then there would have to be strict eligibility criteria (ie you need to specifically enter the championship for your results to count) which is not practical nor fair to clubs around the country.
With the system for next year could a club make a complaint against AI if they don't medal because one of their runners did not get in via the lottery but would have a time better than a runner who scored for another team? -(possible based on historical times of scoring teams)

adrian522

Slow_Runner wrote: »

Don't see much of an issue with lottery system itself if it is over subscribed, based on current numbers there is a high chance of getting in unlike London and it is the fairest system imo. I would charge full amount for successful applicants tough instead of €15 to stop duplicate entries.
Wrt the national championship however this really needs to be looked at, an AI race needs to be open to all club members to enter, if not then there would have to be strict eligibility criteria (ie you need to specifically enter the championship for your results to count) which is not practical nor fair to clubs around the country.
With the system for next year could a club make a complaint against AI if they don't medal because one of their runners did not get in via the lottery but would have a time better than a runner who scored for another team? -(possible based on historical times of scoring teams)

Agree with this, they should probably run the championships at a different race rather than linking up with the Dublin marathon if people can't get an entry.

nannerby

Yes putting it in another race would be the best the DCM will still sell out and another marathon will benefit from hosting the National Champs.

RacoonQueen

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Supporters won't care or know about the lottery, people come out to cheer on those running.

For me the big thing is the influx of time wasters into the lottery, nothing like saying "Oh I came out in the lottery", for me if you come out of the lottery you should be paying the whole amount straight away to ward off these time wasters and getting only people who are genuinely looking to run.

Time wasters :rolleyes: I don't know if I will want to run the marathon next year, it's a long way away, so I'd consider going for an entry and then decide next summer based on what else is going on or what my goals are whether I was going to run. Most people wouldn't be setting major goals a year in advance. I could have gone out and run on Sunday but I didn't see the point plodding around, that's just me, so my entry wasn't used.



Where are people getting this rubbish that people who don't use their entry are the reason this happened, all races bank on no shows. If 20,000 people had collected numbers and turned up on Sunday the organisers would have been under a serious amount of pressure.

HelenAnne

I know it’s really annoying when someone comes onto a thread and says ‘I don’t have time to get into this’ or ‘I haven’t read it all …’ but I’m sort of doing that now (sorry!)

I haven’t read the fine detail of the lottery system; from the quick overview I’ve read, I’d be inclined to agree with the people who say maybe the first step should have been to get a better entry platform / website before deciding ‘first come / first served’ wouldn’t work anymore, and I would agree with a lot of the concerns people are raising about club championships etc. I also know that it’s only a few days since people ran the marathon, and that they may be on a high which has now been marred by the lottery announcement and that’s where all their anger is coming from …

However, I’d just like to say (& I’m not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, nor am I saying that people can’t express their opinions on a public forum) that SOME (not all) of the posts on both this thread and the ‘doper’ thread have been unnecessarily vitriolic, unnecessarily personal and have imputed motives of greed and corruption to a group of people (the Dublin Marathon Committee and organising team) who have never shown themselves to be anything other than runner-focused and inclusive.

It’s no mean feat to try to organise a marathon that is at once friendly and inclusive to all abilities AND aims to bring up the standard of Irish running. But that’s what the Dublin team try to do. I’m not saying they always get things right (who does?) but I do think that they take feedback onboard and answer questions and criticisms in a straightforward way.

Of course posters are entitled to their opinion about the marathon, the organisers, changes to the entry system, the elite start list – whatever. But I’d suggest people wait until the full detail of the club / AAI entry system is released before panicking, and I also think we should give the Marathon team the benefit of the doubt and not immediately jump to the conclusion that there’s corruption or money grabbing at work (& I know I’m conflating two threads here, a lot of the personal comments were over on the other thread).

I don’t at all want to try to shut down discussion, I just wanted to give my 2 cents worth and my appreciation of what the Dublin marathon has done for mass participation running AND for standards in marathon running.

As you were :-)

RacoonQueen

skyblue46 wrote: »

I would think the time would count. The one thing I haven't yet seen officially is the qualifying period applicable to GFA. I'm not sure that a 2018 time would qualify.

Yeah I don't understand why this is missing, I haven't run a marathon since 2013 but I ran a GFA time there, I don't know if I can enter with this?
And the unanswered question remains, how does someone enter the championship if it is their first marathon??

HelenAnne

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Yeah I don't understand why this is missing, I haven't run a marathon since 2013 but I ran a GFA time there, I don't know if I can enter with this?
And the unanswered question remains, how does someone enter the championship if it is their first marathon??

Yes, someone was asking me this this morning. I wondered if they might end up having separate entry for the championship, like the way you have to enter the RnR half through the AAI to be in the championship?

PaulieC

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Where are people getting this rubbish that people who don't use their entry are the reason this happened, all races bank on no shows. If 20,000 people had collected numbers and turned up on Sunday the organisers would have been under a serious amount of pressure.

Sorry, that completely doesn't fit the narrative. It's being done as a money grab due to shady "corporates" don't ya know.

manwithaplan

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Yeah I don't understand why this is missing, I haven't run a marathon since 2013 but I ran a GFA time there, I don't know if I can enter with this?

I agree about the need for clarity but I would be surprised if a time as old as this would count. Maybe if it's for the under 35 category but even then it is possibly a stretch. Fingers crossed you get in if you decide to apply though!

RacoonQueen

manwithaplan wrote: »

I agree about the need for clarity but I would be surprised if a time as old as this would count. Maybe if it's for the under 35 category but even then it is possibly a stretch. Fingers crossed you get in if you decide to apply though!

I don't think they've given it that much thought Can't imagine a 2013 time would cut it but they should have called this out from the start. They seem to have jumped the gun with all this announcement, they should have given themselves more time and got all this communication prepared and lined up before announcing.
I know they're volunteers but they're experienced in this game, always ask yourself 'how will this blow up' and 'what questions will people ask' and address them in your initial comms.
Either DCM team or AI completely dropped the ball here but I've a niggling feeling that AI are as surprised by all this as the rest of us. I haven't spoken to one person from a club that saw this coming.

purelike

It has been fairly clumsy I think.

adrian522

purelike wrote: »

It has been fairly clumsy I think.

Definitely. They could have handled it much better. I think they've manged to annoy everyone at this stage

Ceepo

From the Cork Athletics Facebook page.

AAI National Marathon Championship 2020 - Radical Rethink Needed!

Disclaimer: This article reflects the personal views of Cork Athletics Webmaster, and does NOT reflect the views of Cork Athletics County Board

Of the 17,933 finishers in 2019, only 1886 (10.5%) would qualify under AAI Good For Age criteria. However, only 877 AAI members meet the standard!
There were a total of 3,849 entrants in the AAI National Marathon Championships. Therefore only 22.79% of AAI members would qualify for 2020

It is a totally ridiculous, intolerable, and unacceptable situation that less than 25% of Athletics Ireland entrants in this years Championships would be eligible for the 2020 Championship. As a Championship event, this system is NOT fit for purpose, and MUST be changed.

https://www.corkathletics.org/news/1522-national-marathon-entry-controversy-2019.html

skyblue46

Fair play to them! As I said earlier DCM are well entitled to have any entry system and to allow whatever number of AAI members entry without the lottery. The fact remains it reduces the suitability of DCM for the status of national championships.

PhilOssophy

Oh well I guess its the Longford marathon so.....long held dream to go run around Longford.....

Trampas

It use to be €70 if signed up by July then increased €80 by August and then €90 until it closed.

Then it went to number increases to now €90 across the board.

Looks like a split between aai and dcm is in the pipeline

nannerby

Ceepo wrote: »

From the Cork Athletics Facebook page.

AAI National Marathon Championship 2020 - Radical Rethink Needed!

Disclaimer: This article reflects the personal views of Cork Athletics Webmaster, and does NOT reflect the views of Cork Athletics County Board

Of the 17,933 finishers in 2019, only 1886 (10.5%) would qualify under AAI Good For Age criteria. However, only 877 AAI members meet the standard!
There were a total of 3,849 entrants in the AAI National Marathon Championships. Therefore only 22.79% of AAI members would qualify for 2020

It is a totally ridiculous, intolerable, and unacceptable situation that less than 25% of Athletics Ireland entrants in this years Championships would be eligible for the 2020 Championship. As a Championship event, this system is NOT fit for purpose, and MUST be changed.

https://www.corkathletics.org/news/1522-national-marathon-entry-controversy-2019.html

Hopefully more clubs and athletics boards voice their complaints as well.

average_runner

nannerby wrote: »

Hopefully more clubs and athletics boards voice their complaints as well.

Well they can't have the race without the clubs volunteers!!!!

So there is an easy way to block it.

Sunny Dayz

From listening to chat online and in WhatsApp groups over the past few days - I'd say whoever enters under the new lottery scheme will surely get an offer of a place in Jan. Most I know who did DCM as their first marathon have said that's it box ticked, no interest in doing DCM or another marathon again. A lot of the people I know who are marathon regulars have said that they are looking into picking another marathon as their main one next year and give DCM a miss for a year, do a marathon somewhere in the country, Belfast is cropping up a bit, or going abroad to one that doesn't require a lottery or qualifying time and making a weekend of it with a few fellow runners. Smaller scale events and MCI events should see an increase in entries for next year and I'd imagine they may sell out quicker.

rovers_runner

From further investigation I'm confident the following will be the outcome.
Organizers have done this essentially to have a number to use for this and future permits.
If there was a number north of 25K they'd have to start thinking about a new route etc. That isn't going to happen short term.


- Organizers will take stock of the entry at end of Nov
- Entry less than 22500 - proceed with entry completion asap
- Entry between 22500 and 25000 - go to AGS and DCC to get approval for numbers - proceed with entry completion on approval as this will be a formality when showing the fall off numbers in % terms of entrants to participants.

It wont be any higher than 25000, as they will find that last July the reason for the crash was everyone had multiple sessions/apps/devices open trying to get the few places on offer.


They should have just opened a standby list and could have kept that open well past Nov but we are where we are......
I expect that if this isn't fixed by an about turn tomorrow and they just have first come first served then it will be sorted by the first week in December, everyone here will be registered by Christmas.

PhilOssophy

Sunny Dayz wrote: »

From listening to chat online and in WhatsApp groups over the past few days - I'd say whoever enters under the new lottery scheme will surely get an offer of a place in Jan. Most I know who did DCM as their first marathon have said that's it box ticked, no interest in doing DCM or another marathon again. A lot of the people I know who are marathon regulars have said that they are looking into picking another marathon as their main one next year and give DCM a miss for a year, do a marathon somewhere in the country, Belfast is cropping up a bit, or going abroad to one that doesn't require a lottery or qualifying time and making a weekend of it with a few fellow runners. Smaller scale events and MCI events should see an increase in entries for next year and I'd imagine they may sell out quicker.

People always threaten that sort of thing. I can honestly say I'd rather pull all my teeth out than go run a marathon in Longford, Belfast, etc.

For every person who finished Sunday and said never again, box ticked, etc - there will be another person wanting to tick that box.

Dublin is popular for a reason, because it is a great marathon and while I don't agree with how the organisers are going about this, I think people are over-reacting and throwing their toys out of the pram.

Pacing Mule

Belfast was a total clusterfcuk this year and can see it repeating similar for next year. It's not going to be too appealing an alternative imo.

Sunny Dayz

PhilOssophy wrote: »

People always threaten that sort of thing. I can honestly say I'd rather pull all my teeth out than go run a marathon in Longford, Belfast, etc.

For every person who finished Sunday and said never again, box ticked, etc - there will be another person wanting to tick that box.

Dublin is popular for a reason, because it is a great marathon and while I don't agree with how the organisers are going about this, I think people are over-reacting and throwing their toys out of the pram.

That's true. When all the fuss and hype dies down - people will probably change their minds. And when the lottery opens up next month I think they will still enter anyway otherwise they would have FOMO!

RacoonQueen

You will get a huge amount, I would say ~30k entering the lottery because people will enter on the basis that they want a chance to get a spot. You've no chance now of buying one from the site in a couple of months if you don't. Old system you'd just throw an entry in at some stage once they where running out if you where on the fence, now if you are on the fence you just have to throw your hat in to the lottery.

TheW1zard

RacoonQueen wrote: »

You will get a huge amount, I would say ~30k entering the lottery because people will enter on the basis that they want a chance to get a spot. You've no chance now of buying one from the site in a couple of months if you don't. Old system you'd just throw an entry in at some stage once they where running out if you where on the fence, now if you are on the fence you just have to throw your hat in to the lottery.

Exactly, myself included:eek: