SINGAPORE: Participants of the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon have taken to social media to express their frustration following the event on Sunday (Dec 3).
Complaints included poor organisation of the baggage deposit area that resulted in many participants missing their flag-off time for their races, as well as connection issues with the marathon’s mobile app and lack of management during the distribution of finishers’ T-shirts.
Some participants complained of inadequate manpower at the bagage deposit and collection areas. (Photo: Facebook/Thomas Pabst)
Participants took to Facebook to vent their dissatisfaction during and after the event, with many saying that it took at least one hour to deposit their belongings and ended up missing their flag-off time.
Responding to one of the comments on Facebook at 4.43am, Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon organisers apologised for the long wait.
“Thanks for giving us the heads up, and we’re sorry for the long wait. We’ve communicated to onground staff to fix the situation and step up the manpower. Apologies for that once again, and we’re trying our best to fix the situation now,” the post said.
Participant Janice Leong, 27, told Channel NewsAsia that she waited 45 minutes to deposit her bag and was late for the flag-off time for the 10km marathon, even though she arrived 15 minutes early for the race.
“I think the time I spent waiting from baggage drop to starting the race, to collecting my bag is even longer than the time I take to complete my race,” Ms Leong said.
“So much time wasted. Utter disappointment,” she said.
“Baggage retrieval was just as nightmarish,” said another participant. It took him more than 45 minutes for him to retrieve his belongings, after he queued in the wrong lane due to lack of instructions given by staff.
Participants waiting to retrieve their bags at the Standard Chartered Marathon on Dec 3.
Other participants complained that even though they registered the size they wanted for the finishers’ T-shirt prior to the race, they ended up with the wrong size as there were no staff to manage how the T-shirts were distributed.
Participants ended up grabbing any size they wanted, with many getting sizes that were either too big or too small.
Runners relying on the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon mobile app to track their progress also reported issues during the race, saying that the app did not record their run properly.
“None of the timing stations showed on the app apart from the start time,” a participant said, adding that it only worked hours after the event itself.
The Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon on Sunday was sold out to 48,400 participants comprising 126 nationalities. The event includes the full marathon (42km), the half-marathon (21km), 10km, Ekiden and Kids Dash categories.
Channel NewsAsia has reached out to the marathon’s organisers for comment.
