Missing Names From Bloomsday Out On Sunday

Between 300 and 400 Bloomsday finishers who were missing from published results will see their names in print Sunday.

Some runners who clocked times of between 40 minutes and an hour were accidentally left out when a batch of finishers’ tags was misplaced, race coordinator Karen Heaps said.

Their exclusion meant standings for some age brackets and Corporate Cup teams were incorrect in Tuesday’s newspaper.

Corrected results for top finishers and the names and times of missed runners will be published in Sunday’s Spokesman-Review.

The results also will be available Sunday on the paper’s Web site: www.spokane.net.

Postcards mailed to finishers with race times have been delayed pending the corrected results, Heaps said.

The error occurred when the runners’ tags, collected from a finish line chute, were misplaced at race headquarters.

The tags had become stained with blood, Heaps said. They were set aside so a pair of rubber gloves could be found, but weren’t discovered until Monday.

Heaps believes the person who collected the tags stabbed himself on the metal spike used to hold them, bloodying the paper.

Race officials began getting calls when results were published Monday afternoon.

Among the excluded runners was Lori Pappas, a 35-year-old Richland woman who finished with a personal-best 51:37. She believes she was the fastest female runner from the Tri-Cities, and anticipated checking her time.

“All you really want out of the race is your finish time,” Pappas said. “It was disappointing to not see the time.”

Lori Moloney, 40, of Spokane, believes she finished sixth in the women’s masters bracket at 48:30.

She noticed her time was missing, as were the times of friends who shared the same post-race chute.

“I was kind of disappointed,” Moloney said. “But I thought, it’s not that big a deal. It’s not like I won it. It’s not a life-threatening thing.”

Heaps said usually about 1 percent of finishers are missed in the published results.

“When you have 1 percent not counted, it’s really not that bad,” said Heaps, noting that the race relies on thousands of volunteers.

Heaps said the wet, cold weather on Sunday caused problems for the stringers who collect runners’ tags in the finish line chutes.

Some tags stuck together. Others got mangled or lost when the stringers’ hands became wooden in the chill.