RUNNING : Silent Cannon Causes Confusion at the Start of New York Marathon

The technology used in marathons is generally of the highest sort. Computerized start/finish systems make results available quickly after a race. Major marathons videotape sections of a race to ensure that runners who claim prizes have run the entire race. Sophisticated course measurement is employed to protect both the integrity of the race and the athletes who may set records.

So, consider the curious case of the kaput cannon in last month’s New York City Marathon. And consider how a mistake may have cost Ingrid Kristiansen $10,000.

The race starts on the approach to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on Staten Island. A cannon is fired, at which time three streams of runners race onto the bridge. This three-way start is used to accommodate the huge numbers--23,000 in this year’s race.

However, the cannon never fired. The race’s technical director, Allan Steinfeld, said he was standing on the bridge a few minutes before the start, and an unidentified National Guardsman said: “You aren’t going to fire that cannon, are you?”

Steinfeld said: “I didn’t know what he was talking about. We had always fired that cannon. And now he was saying it was unsafe. I didn’t know what to do.”

Steinfeld said the cannon, a 75-millimeter howitzer, was filled with a paper wad. Still, the National Guardsman said the cannon was pointed in the wrong direction and was potentially dangerous. Steinfeld decided that the “start” command should be given verbally. He handed a microphone to Mayor Edward Koch and gave him the cue to say, “Go.”

“No one was used to that command,” said Steinfeld, who estimated that there was about a half-second delay. The official race clock started with the “Go” command, not when the runners actually began running.

To compound the problem, when the massive field did begin to move, confusion ruled. The groups of runners--men, women and “slow” men--converged when they should have split three ways. Steinfeld said a high school band, which was to have ushered the elite male runners into one chute, instead broke ranks and allowed the two male fields to merge.

Olympic champion Gelindo Bordin was especially upset by this, saying after the race that the potential for injury was great and that back-of-the-pack runners were pushing and stepping on the elite runners at the start.

Race director Fred Lebow said: “It was the most unruly start ever.”

Not only did the entire field start running some time after the official clock began, distorting everyone’s official finish time, but the confusion involving the two men’s groups certainly delayed the top male runners.

In the immediate aftermath, there was little mention of Kristiansen. When race officials revealed the details of the start problems at a news conference the next day, Kristiansen was listening with interest. Her winning time of 2 hours 25 minutes 30 seconds was only one second off Allison Roe’s course record. Had Kristiansen run two seconds faster, she would have set a course record and earned a $10,000 bonus. Despite Steinfeld’s assertion that the runners hesitated for only a half-second at the start, there was evidence that it was at least a second or two.

Kristiansen had no recourse but to accept the official version graciously. Marathons are an imprecise business, and runners often miss records through their own misunderstanding. But it’s a shame that Kristiansen was denied a record because of someone else’s error.

The problems in New York ought to be put into perspective: The New York City Marathon is the state of the art. Several years ago, they overcame problems that other marathons are just discovering. Most of the glitches in staging such a huge event have been worked out. So, when a mistake is made in New York, it’s easy to be critical.

It was not, however the first problem at the race’s start. In 1979, Steinfeld told Mayor Koch to pull the rope that fired the cannon. Koch tugged, but nothing happened. “I looked at the side,” Steinfeld said. “This fellow was still holding the shell. He just looked at me and said, ‘Should I put this in now, sir?’ ”

There has been trouble elsewhere, too. This year’s Los Angeles Marathon had a false start, unusual in marathons.

One aspect of New York’s race that magnifies errors is the unwieldy size of the field. Crowd control for 23,000 antsy people is dicey, at best.

Still, Lebow is in favor of allowing the field to grow to 24,000 next year. Steinfeld, who oversees the technical details of the race, thinks this would be a mistake. He said he’d like to see the field stay the same or even shrink.

The marathon rejects about 21,000 entrants each year and Lebow can’t bear to think about the loss in revenue that represents. But there is quite a difference between being the largest marathon in the United States, with everything under control, and being a huge race that becomes a nightmare.

New York has generally been the former. Allowing it to get bigger would probably result in the latter.

Running Notes

World marathon record-holder Belayneh Densimo of Ethiopia continues to be an enigma. Apart from the mysteries regarding his age--he says he is 24, while running source books list him as closer to 32--and his record of victories--he says he has run 14 marathons and won 12, while record books indicate that he has run 15 and won 10, still, not bad--there is the intriguing matter of his name. It’s not the spelling of his name, although Densimo has given at least two versions of that; it’s the meaning of his name. In the Ethiopian language of Amharic, Belayneh means “on the top,” and Densimo means “lion.” Another curiosity: In the same week that he set the world record last year, Densimo’s first child, a daughter, was born. She was named Kebre Wessen, the Amharic word for “pride.”

Next Saturday at 9 a.m., 1,200 Los Angeles schoolchildren will join in the third annual Run for Fun. Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee will be the starter for the 3K race involving 11- to 14-year-olds from the 50 schools in the L.A. Unified School District. The event is organized by the Amateur Athletic Foundation. . . . The Long Beach Marathon has been selected as the women’s Olympic Trial in 1992. Columbus will play host to the men’s Olympic Trial.

In the San Diego International Marathon Sunday, Doug Kurtis of Detroit will attempt to set a record for running the most sub-2:20 marathons in one year. The record is held by Kjell Erik Stahl of Sweden, who in 1983 ran 11 sub-2:20 marathons at the age of 36. Kurtis, 37, has run 11 sub-2:20s this year, including three in October. Kurtis also is ranked second behind Stahl in total sub-2:20s--Stahl has 62, Kurtis 49.