THE hugely popular Wrexham half marathon almost descended into chaos after the signs were sabotaged.
The Village Bakery Half Marathon, which incorporates the North Wales Half Marathon Championships, regularly attracts nearly 500 competitors.
But about 40 runners were sent the wrong way after the signs were deliberately tampered with twice.
The mis-direction resulted in some of the participants going on a route believed to be about two miles shorter than scheduled.
The results of Sunday’s race at Wrexham Industrial Estate are being reviewed and the outcome for the North Wales category of the race has been scrapped.
Wrexham Athletics Club has issued an apology over the incident.
Chairman David Alun Williams estimated around 40 runners out of the total field of 467 were affected.
Mr Williams said: “Race organiser Peter Norman went out at about 7am to put the signs out. Everything was going as planned when the race started and Peter was in the lead car with the front runner.
“Then they got to one section when Peter spotted a sign had been turned. He put it back right and carried on. But afterwards it became clear the same thing had happened again when some runners were higher up the field than they should have been.
“I have no idea why anyone should want to do this. The half marathon has been taking place for years without any trouble at all,” added Mr Williams.
One of the runners who was sent the wrong way was logging the distance he ran. The shorter route came out as being just over 11 miles instead of the half marathon distance of 13 miles.
A statement on the Wrexham Athletics Club website says: “Wrexham AC appreciate that all of you, like us, are very annoyed and frustrated by these actions. Some of you have travelled many miles to be with us.
“The results published are the finishing line record in order of finishers. We have indicated for some of the early finishers those we believe were mis-guided and those who completed the full distance. After that we have no way of verifying who went which way.
“Hopefully, you will have an idea from your recorded time if you were significantly quicker than expected.
“Peter Norman will try and work out the age group prize winners and will send these out in the post as soon as he is able.”
The first five runners home were all listed as taking the shorter route because of the changed signs.
The fastest runner known to have taken the correct route was Andrew Davis, a member of the Maldwyn Harriers club, who was sixth overall.