Tyler Pence set a personal record en route to his win at last weekend's Quad Cities Marathon along the Mississippi River, yet the race was decided by another form of transport. Kenyan runners Elijah Mwangangi Saolo and Luke Kibet were far ahead of Pence midway through the race but faced disqualifications after a race volunteer bicyclist guided them to a wrong turn.
The win gave the U.S. its first Quad Cities Marathon champion since 2001 and Pence a first-place prize of $3,000. Pence -- a 28-year-old track and cross-country coach at the University of Illinois-Springfield -- finished with a personal-record time of two hours, 15 minutes and six seconds in his first race since the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in Feb. 2020.
"I obviously came today with no hope of PRing," Pence told the Quad-City Times, "but sometimes it just comes."
Saolo and Kibet surely came into the race hoping for anything but the disqualifications they got. A visibly distraught Quad Cities Marathon director Joe Moreno confirmed the bicyclist was at fault after the race, holding back tears before telling the Kenyans "I messed up royally."
Still, Moreno defended his race's infrastructure by saying the area where Saolo and Kibet took wrong turns was "well-marked" and had "well-displayed" signage. He also said the runners had an opportunity to orient themselves with the course a day before the race.
Pence -- who witnessed Saolo and Kibet veer off course -- had no trouble finding his path.
"It was pretty obvious where to go out there so I don't know what went on,'' Pence said. "I was about 20 seconds back so I kind of saw it happening but I'm not going to shout. It's not my job."
According to the Quad-City Times, Saolo had recently started a GoFundMe page to collect enough money for himself, his wife and two children to remain in the U.S., but missed out on prize money due to the disqualification. Moreno -- who described the bicyclist's failure as "not acceptable" and called for "better trained or qualified" volunteers in future races -- is attempting to rectify the situation. The race director said once he sees video evidence of the bicyclist's error, he plans to compensate Saolo and Kibet.
"I don't want this to be a total loss for them so I think there is going to be some compensation for them," Moreno said. "That shows that we are taking some responsibility ourselves. As race director, I feel somewhat responsible … It's very likely we're going to compensate them."
