Error in hurdle placement
caused 5 to fall at states
Officials apologized yesterday for an error in hurdle placement that caused five participants to trip in a race at the Hawaii High School Athletics Association Island Movers Track and Field Championships on Saturday at Kamehameha.
All five stumbled on the seventh of 10 hurdles in the boys 110-meter race, and reviews of the race tape by coaches and officials confirmed none of the athletes caused each other to fall.
It was determined that the seventh set of hurdles was set up about a meter closer to the sixth flight than it should have been.
"The hurdles were in the wrong place. It looks like marks (on the track) might have been used incorrectly," head meet official Gordon Scruton said. "Those that know track and hurdles know something like this happens infrequently. But when it does, the circumstances are very unfortunate."
Scruton, a former college hurdler who has officiated at the Hawaii state high school meet for more than 20 years, said he was bothered by the outcome of the race even before he found out how it happened.
"I was thinking there's no way that could've been coincidence or bad luck," Scruton said. "Unfortunately there's no way we can go back and re-do it. If we had realized what the problem was at the time, we probably would have re-run the race then. All we can do now is apologize."
HHSAA executive director Keith Amemiya also apologized.
"Obviously we regret the error," said Amemiya. "It was an honest mistake, but that doesn't make things better for those affected, and we are all lucky no one was seriously injured. The best we can do now is apologize and redouble our efforts to avoid such errors in the future."
Kamehameha coach Sam Moku, Saint Louis coach Kelsey Nakanelua (neither of whom had participants in the final), and others watched a tape of the race Tuesday.
"It looked like the hurdles were out of place, and that nobody interfered with anybody else," said Moku. "They all hit on the same flight of hurdles, "In the future there has to be more official oversight. Everything needs to be checked."
Akoni Clubb of King Kekaulike, one of three athletes to avoid hitting a hurdle, won the race with a time of 15.72 seconds.
Baldwin's Jerome Piano had the best qualifying time of 15.33 on Thursday. But he was one of the five to fall in the final. Piano was shaken up when his head hit the track, but he eventually got up and finished in 39.88.
"I know they can't re-run the race, but I feel bad for the boys, especially the ones who came in to the final with the better times," Nakanelua said. "The Baldwin boy should've won. ... He had the best technique."