A Chinese man was disqualified from the Xiamen Marathon for chain-smoking during the race, violating a new rule against uncivilized behavior.
A Chinese man was disqualified from the Xiamen Marathon for chain-smoking during the race, violating a new rule against uncivilized behavior.
On the one hand, seems he earned his place. On the other hand, they should have stopped him running when there was still a chance to protect the (maybe literal) sensitivities of other racers and observers. Enforcement only after he finished is just stupid.
Put another way, if he does it merely to do it, as many runners do, what’s to stop him doing it again and again, knowing his personal results will not only be shared with him, but likely the papers?
Apparently they didn’t notice until photos of the violation went viral online
Like I said. The weakest form of enforcement possible. Their policy accomplished nothing here, and somehow they were proud enough of that nothing to try to get papers to crow about it.
Chinese papers didn’t crow about it: the marathon released a statement on Chinese Twitter, the freaking Daily Mail somehow managed to pick up on it, and then Business Insider™ then re-reported the stuff reported by Daily Mail with s’more links to the sources.
They wanted him to fail so they could bemoan the evils of smoking. When he succeeded the resorted to bureaucracy to rob him of his prize.