NYC Marathon Vanity Bibs Debut A Big Hit

Over 50,000 runners completed the 2016 New York City Marathon yesterday. This year brought about the race’s youngest victor, 20-year-old Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, as well as a third consecutive title for Mary Keitany.

In more exciting news, it also marks the first year that contestants were allowed to choose a vanity name for their bib, over the typical preassigned number. The process for registering vanity bibs was enacted last year after a petition for them garnered massive support from the marathon community.

“I love running marathons, nothing feels better than crossing that finish line. On the other hand, nothing feels worse than putting on that standard bib. It makes me feel like I’m reduced down to a serial number, and I know all of my fellow running mates stand for more than that,” says Andy Jenson, the organizer of the petition.

The TCS reported that they’ve received over 45,000 vanity bib registrations, far exceeding expectations. Surprisingly, nearly 98% of the vanity requests were the same or similar versions of the same word. The top five vanity names requested were CHAMP, BEAST, WINNER, 100MPH, and SUCKIT.

Unprepared for this overwhelming number of collisions, the bib system left thousands of runners with matching bibs. Marathon organizers spent hundreds of hours looking up runners manually. The TCS apologized for the frustration and will work to mitigate such issues for next year’s vanity bib registrations.