Relay Runner Crashes Marathon Finish Line, Snaps Tape Ahead Of Winner

Shitaye Gemechu won the Dallas Marathon this weekend, but she did not get a chance to snap the tape at the finish line. That's because right as she reached the finish, a 51-year-old runner named Janice Moore came out of nowhere and was like, "Nah, this tape's mine."

At about the 1:00 mark of the video above, you can see Moore crash the finish line and snap the tape just ahead of Gemechu, much to the confusion of the announcers calling the race. They immediately assumed that Moore was some sort of interloper trying to cheat her way to a first-place finish, but it turns out that she is just an over-eager relay runner.

Moore was finishing up the final leg of her mixed-gender relay race, which shares a course and a finish line with the marathon runners, and assumed that Gemechu was another relay runner, hence her decision to turn on the jets and zoom past Gemechu at the finish. Afterward, she explained herself to Dallas Culture Map:

"I have nothing but the best respect for Shitaye Gemechu and did not mean to go in front of her," Moore says. "I thought she was another relay runner. It all happened so fast. It wasn't until she pulled out her country's flag that I realized who she was."

[...]

"We had another rival relay team we were trying to beat, and I felt like I was losing time," she says. "So I switched over to the full marathon area, which was almost empty. She came up behind me in a flash. I didn't even see the banner until I was there."

Now I'm just wondering why relay runners and half-marathoners don't do shit like this all the time. Fuck etiquette, man, go for the glory.

[ Dallas Culture Map]