HUNDREDS of disgruntled runners who took part in the inaugural Bournemouth Marathon Festival have accused event organisers of withholding information by failing to provide full race results.

GSi Events Ltd, the team behind the BMF, has published the top ten runners in the various age categories, but is refusing to publish all the results on the grounds of data protection.

But Stephen Allen, 53, from Poole, who took part in Sunday’s marathon, said: “If data protection was the issue, all runners would be covered by the same regulations.

“Accurate details of how many runners were in the whole race and how many were in each age class also allow individual runners to understand how they performed against the rest of the field.

“Full results like these are published and made available on the internet for runners in global events such as the London Marathon and the New York Marathon.

“Even Bournemouth’s own annual “Time to Care” 10k Hospice run publishes full results online after the event.”

Mr Allen added: “I, along with many other runners, feel short-changed that we are not being given full results.

“We also feel we have been misled and given inaccurate information on the number of runners in each event and it has marred what was otherwise a great weekend.”

A spokesman for Littledown Harriers agreed: “Information on all runners and their club affiliations is important as it allows running clubs to evaluate how their members performed as a group in relation to rival clubs.”

But a spokesman for GSi events said: “All runners’ personal data and information, including running times, are treated with great respect.

“As such, result information is exclusively available to each individual.

“Runners simply have to log in to get their times, splits and finishing position within the race.

“They can then choose to share this information as they see fit.”

What people are saying on Facebook

  • John Wheatley: “It is quite ridiculous to quote data protection when virtually every other race in the country publishes full sets of results.”
  • Steve Greenaway: “I certainly would not have bothered with their race if I’d known ahead of time that you would hide the results.”
  • Mark Dutton: “If data protection is the reason, how and why are my details posted on runbritainrankings.com?”
  • Stuart Park: “I was 84th in my age group but do not know if there were 85 or 850 in many age group, surely that’s not a secret is it?”