Cantrell said that he gave it the okay as it was not a political slogan and wasn’t as likely to get a political reaction. But instead of leaving the race, they switched the name to Breanna, George & Ahmaud.
In an article in Outside magazine, Cantrell explained that another CRAW team wanted to us Black Lives Matter as a team name, and it was also disallowed. Personally, my races, they've always been very diverse.” I think that if we repair the underlying issues that we have as a country where there’s more justice and fairness that will cease to be a problem. “It’s a complicated topic because to a great extent, ultra running is a sport that is primarily for people who have leisure time and leisure money, not so much a matter of race,” he explains. “Because Laz is a prominent, revered figure in the ultra running community, my team and other ultra runners worry that other race directors and ultra runners will emulate Laz and his devotion to order.”Ĭantrell, however, disagrees that ultra running has a diversity issue, not to mention disagreeing that he has any kind of a platform. “Laz, despite his well-meaning intentions, has positioned himself as a stumbling block for BIPOC runners’ inclusion in the ultra community,” he says. But, for Chan, it was an opportunity to confront these issues head-on that was missed. He also expressed his own strongly held feelings against racism, to Chan and his team in an email. It is an unfortunate part of my job that I absorbed and the runners aren’t exposed to it.”Ĭantrell is a popular figure and has had a hand in organizing the most popular ultra-running events on the planet. And in this case, all of the vitriol and nastiness. I feel like as a race director, when negative things happen in a race, part of your job is to absorb so it doesn’t affect the other racers. My wife's afraid someone is gonna burn down our house or kill us.
“Certainly the response that I got confirms that it was a good decision. I mean, if someone came and started a fight in your real race, what would you do? You would make them leave,” he explains, while on a walk in the Tennessee woods near his home. “First, we didn’t ban Black Lives Matter we banned political slogans because it just starts fights. While Chan and his team prep for another race, Cantrell and his family are still facing hundreds of hate-filled emails in addition to threats to him and his wife. He said, he is running under the team name Runners United For Black Lives and has invited other runners and walkers to join us in this virtual race that supports “a nonprofit dedicated to getting more Black faces running trails, climbing mountains, and sitting at outdoor industry boardroom tables.” “I felt that it was wrong to delete my post instead of dealing with the hatred, but I was sympathetic to Laz and the other admins who said that there were too many participants leaving nasty comments for them to control.”Ī post shared by The Asian Sensation on at 12:41pm PDTĬhan pulled out of the race and used the refund to register for HBCU’s Outside’s #BlackToTheTrails5K. “The admins told me my singlet was not the issue, but the nasty replies (which I never saw because I went to sleep after posting) were what caused them to remove my post,” Chan explains. Instead of policing the growing number of racist comments, Chan explained that his original post was removed. In a Facebook group for the event, Chan, who last year competed at the six-stage TransRockies Run, was confronted with what he describes as racist comments after displaying a Black Lives Matter singlet he wore.
#Lazarus lake free
And it all started with a desire to maintain a running event free of politics that butted heads with a runner wanted to freely express himself. It has also resulted in Cantrell and his family enduring a steady stream of hate mail and threats. What happened has resulted in the issue being vaulted from the comments section on niche social media pages to the mainstream media. Two events organized by one of the most revered and well-known figures in ultra running: Gary Cantrell, a.k.a.
#Lazarus lake series
“Unfortunately, it feels like we’re outnumbered by ultra runners, race directors, and elite athletes that don’t believe that the ultra community has a diversity and inclusion problem.”Ĭhan, who took up running in 2012 after donating one of his kidneys, has been at the centre of a controversial series of events that occurred on the social media accounts or behind the scenes at two virtual ultra events: The Great Race Across Tennessee and the Circumpolar Race Around the World (CRAW). “My team and I want the ultra community to be more diverse and inclusive, as would a lot of BIPOC ultra runners and a lot of white ultra runners,” Ben Chan says.
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