Tom Farsides, 50, wearing his singlet from the 2009 Boston Marathon, was one such runner.

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The gold-and-maroon wrestling singlet has been replaced by a dress shirt and sometimes a tie.

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That means they, too, can be used to generate singlet oxygen, given the right molecular intermediary.

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He climbed sometimes in skimpy black singlet and white jeans, sometimes in minute running shorts, with his long blond hair dangling as he inched across a layback or relaxed, hanging by his fingertips, for a while.

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And even at Wentworth, there are rules: no singlet or vest tops, shirts must have a collar (a throwback to the elitist collar-and-tie days, when golf was only played by the upper classes) and strictly no denim.

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