“There is no winner in a tie,” says Barkley Marathons guru Laz Lake – but understands Belgian trio’s call at Backyard Ultra Team Championships

Event creator and mastermind Laz Lake accepts and understands the decision of the record-breaking Belgian trio at his Backyard Ultra World Team Championship not to carry on to determine an individual winner.

This year’s third renewal of the bi-annual event saw 63 nations line up – each in their own country – with all having 15 athletes competing and with double motivation; scoring points for their country and also trying to win the ‘local’ race themselves to be crowned national champion.

The scoring system for the team prize was each ‘yard’ an individual completes, one point is awarded to their country’s score and the total sum of all yards run by all 15 athletes by the end of their event, equals the country’s overall score. The country with the highest number of yards wins the Championships.

One ‘yard’ is a 6.7km / 4.2miles on the hour, every hour, over the same looped course until one person is left standing.

And the brilliant Belgians were the emphatic winners, with their final three runners – Merjin Geerts, Frank Gielen and Ivo Steyaert – all completing 110 yards each which broke the previous world record tally of 108.

They ran for four days and 14 hours non-stop, each covering over 450 miles – a monumental effort.

But having worked together as a team, they decided to finish together as a team too at that point rather than continue and determine the national champion through the last person standing route.

‘Previous history’

Nothing too controversial in that – it was their right to make the call – apart from the fact that earlier this year when the Olympic Games took place, Laz had been quite outspoken about a similar scenario.

In Paris in the high jump competition America’s Shelby McEwen was tied with New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr at the end of the final.

And there had been a precedent set at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 when Italian Gianmarco Tamberi and Qatari Mutaz Essa Barshim opted to share the gold after they were tied.

But McEwen and Kerr went down a different route, going for a jump-off to determine an outright winner instead of being crowned joint Olympic champions.

Laz loved the call to battle on to the finish in Paris, explaining: “i thought it was kind of shameful in the tokyo olympics, when the two high jumpers chose to both get half a gold instead of finishing out the competition.
i was amazed when so many people found some sort of “kumbaya moment” in it.

“nope,
in my mind the silver medal WON by shelby mcewen was much more honorable than the half golds from tokyo.
because he chose to compete until the event was over
instead of accepting a half gold medal before the overtime.
i am stunned that some people are pillorying him for doing the honorable thing,
instead of chickening out for a half a gold medal.”

Laz says ‘team’ aspect makes this different

So how would Laz sum up the Belgian call? As follows…

Writing on his Facebook page Laz reiterated: “i am more comfortable than ever with the idea that there is no winner in a tie.
i have never bought into the idea that tying for a “win”
was some sort of noble act.
all the athletes who decide to tie give up
is the effort required to win.”

However, he then added: “but the three belgians once again chose to sacrifice the opportunity to be declared champion
and finish together.
and why should they not?
this was the “team” championships,
and it was their team that won.
(in dominating fashion)

“we still dont know who is the very best individual.
but that is not important today.
the individual championships will settle that…

“a year from now!”

Those individual championships – held in odd numbered years – are more competitive than ever. The last time out saw Harvey Lewis set the previous world record of 108 yards, with Ihor Verys credited with the assist.

Both would go on to run in this year’s Barkley Marathons as a result – with Verys producing a remarkable performance on his debut to be the first of a record five finishers.