Boniface Kongin of Kenya won the Montreal marathon on Sunday, finishing the 42-kilometre race in two hours, 15 minutes and 18 seconds. He beat Mohamed Aagab of Morocco (2:19:43) and fellow Kenyan Isaac Maiyo (2:23:17) to the finish line at Place des Arts.

The marathon started almost an hour late, at 8 a.m Sunday. Race director Dominic Piché said the delay was caused by a shortage of staff and volunteers to secure the road race’s course.

Piché said he had become aware of the issue on Saturday night and had hoped to rectify the issue in time for the race’s scheduled 7:10 start.

Montreal police officers ultimately stepped in to help secure the course. It is not yet clear if that will come at an additional cost to the race’s organizers.

Piché, who apologized to the race’s runners, said starting the race without staff monitoring the barriers along the route was not an option. He took full responsibility for the error, but did not explain the reason there was a lack of staff.

“Event officials will be working with GardaWorld, who was responsible for the course security and staffing of the event, to assess future changes,” the organization said in a statement issued later.

Sunday’s races were held on an unseasonably warm day. The temperature was a comfortable 18 to 20 degrees Celsius in the morning when the first runners finally got underway. However, later in the day, runners faced temperatures closer to 30 degrees, about 10 degrees over the normal high for the last official day of summer.

Nearly 18,000 participants were enrolled in the five events of the Montreal Rock’n’roll Oasis Marathon. On Saturday, 5,637 people participated in family-friendly events, including  five-, ten- and  one-kilometre charity races.

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