Cengage Advantage Books: Foundations of the Legal Environment of Business 2nd Edition by Marianne Jennings, Albert Napier, Marianne Jennings

Exercise 6

The Subway and the Marathon The temptation is remarkable. The run is long. The body screams, "No more!" So there you are in the middle of a marathon and a shortcut crosses your mind. Cheating on this form of a physical final examination became international news when, in 1979, Boston Marathon winner Rosie Ruiz combined her running with a hitch on the subways to earn first place. She repeated the ploy in the 1980 Boston Marathon, but that time her shortcut was discovered.
The New York Road Runners Club, the sponsors and managers of the New York City Marathon, discovered that for the 2008 race, there were anomalies in runners' times based on norms for runner's ages and performance times in past races. Of the 71 runners, the club found whose times were not possible given their past performances or ages, and 46 of them had shortened their distance by taking the subway. In at least two situations, the runners who took the subway also took first place in their age category and deprived the real winners of their Tiffany trophies as well as the thrill of quaffing the elixir of victory on the day of the marathon. The real winners in these age categories from 2008 were not notified of their victories until July 2009 because of the lengthy investigations.
A Road Runners Club spokesperson said that the greatest temptation in the race comes when the runners enter Manhattan via the Queensboro Bridge. That entry to the city is close to Central Park and the finish line, but the race takes a turn there for another 10 miles into Harlem and the Bronx. Most cheaters simply skip those boroughs and take the subway to the Central Park finish line.
Are there any laws that govern this situation with the runners? Discuss the ethical issues of the runners. Is anyone hurt if runners cheat? Is this a form of cutting in line?