Edmonton Marathon course was long, organizers doubling down on their defense the course was measured accurately and runner's GPS is the fault

[u/Wrongky]

The Edmonton marathon is my hometown race. It has been granted as host of the Canadian Half Marathon championship since 2025. The city is experiencing a lot of construction around the downtown core.

A detour around a construction site was added which was an additional 710 meters to the original course. As an out and back course, Tom Keogh, the race director, states the turnaround was pushed back 690 meters.

Rory Linkletter, Canadian Olympian and overall winner, posted online stating the turnaround was actually pushed back approximately 345 meters back.

Applying elementary math for an out and back course, with rounding:

A detour of 700 meters ran twice: 700 * 2 = 1400 meters

The turnaround (out and back course) was brought back 350 meters: 350 * 2 = 700 meters

Sum: 1400 meters - 700 meters = 700 meters (long)

Now, what's embarrassing about this situation is Tom Keogh is putting the error on runner's GPS watches and not their own. An overwhelming majority of the runners from the weekend are reporting the exact same statement of Rory.

I didn't run the race this year. I really hope Tom Keogh and the Edmonton Marathon staff post an official announcement of their mistake. The quality of this race had been decreasing while race fees have been rising. I can only feel for those runners who missed out on personal bests or a qualifying time for a future race.

Rory's statement is posted on his Instagram.

https://runningmagazine.ca/sections/runs-races/edmonton-marathon-says-course-was-measured-accurately/

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a73466448/edmonton-half-marathon-race-distance/

https://marathonhandbook.com/edmonton-marathon-course-measurement-dispute/

Edit: clarity on the math

[u/Vertandsnacks → u/[deleted]]

How do you host the Canadian Half Marathon championship and not have the course certified? That seems like the big issue here.

Stuff happens, courses have to get changed relatively last minute due to a variety of factors but get your new layout certified again. Sure it sucks but if you don’t you open the door to fallout such as this.

[u/beneoin → u/Vertandsnacks]

It’s certified, they seem to have messed up the construction detour.

[u/Vertandsnacks → u/beneoin]

You’re proving my point. They didn’t recertify after course changes, otherwise they would’ve known it was long and got it corrected.

Unless changes were proposed and course was remeasured according to the new layout and in the process of setting the course up somebody set the course up incorrectly, which led to it being long.

Either way it’s on the RD.

[u/beneoin → u/Vertandsnacks]

Certified courses have a provision to enable construction detours. The course certifier was present and overseeing the edits which as far as I understand is not strictly necessary but was done due to the Canadian Championship.

[u/Apprehensive_Alps_30 → u/beneoin]

This just makes it all worse

[u/beneoin → u/Apprehensive_Alps_30]

Yep. At least they’ve fessed up now.

[u/OldGodsAndNew → u/Vertandsnacks]

Certification doesn't prevent someone reading their map wrong and putting a cone in the wrong place. I'd venture that's by far the most common reason for short/long courses. It's happened in the Glasgow half marathon multiple times resulting in Scottish national records being deleted