New York woman wins the race... but doesnt really (Read 1458 times)

Just read this article about teh Nike Women's marathon this weekend in San Francisco. Here is the link http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/20/BAUC13L3GQ.DTL Apparently the "elite" women get a 20 minutes (20 minutes - that is ridiculous btw) head start over the other women in the race. Well, a teacher from NY ended up with a 2:55 beating the #1 elite runner by about 6 minutes. So she ran the fastest time (a PR of about 12 minutes) but was not declared the winner because she did not sign up for the race as an "elite" runner. What a rip off - I say you run the fastest time, you are the winner - or just dont give those elites a head start any more.

That is so stupid it's hard to believe it's true. I would be so PO'd if that was me.

Good for her. Bad for the race and race officials.

GMFB! Unbelievable incompetence on the part of the race officials.

And, no offense meant, but a 3 hour marathon is hardly an "elite" time for women. Fast, yes. Elite, no. She was right to have modestly considered herself not to be appropriate for the "elite" start.

I'm glad you said it first because I was thinking of the same thing. Any decent runner would know a 3 hour marathon is not elite and any self respecting 3 hour marathoner would not sign herself up for the elite corral. Nike should have defined the qualifications for being an elite runner and avoided the embarrassment. It is too late to change the rules for this race. For future races, Nike should get rid of the elite start because this is a women's race. Other marathons give elite women their own start so that they don't have to compete for the spot light with the elite men.

Excellent analysis. My bet is that if she had been in the elite race, she would have been buried.

I dunno. Do you really think that the women who won Nike in 3:06+ normally run 2:26-2:35? When you don't have much competition, do you really run a race over a minute per mile slow? The "winner" likely ran the race at or near her potential. Which means that it would have been tough for her to cut off another 10 whole minutes.

I dunno. Do you really think that the women who won Nike in 3:06+ normally run 2:26-2:35? When you don't have much competition, do you really run a race over a minute per mile slow? The "winner" likely ran the race at or near her potential. Which means that it would have been tough for her to cut off another 10 whole minutes.

It doesn't matter. It wasn't the same race. And if 3:06 was her absolute best, then she wasn't elite and the decision to start these women 20 minutes ahead was even dumber.

What doesn't make sense here is why they have a 20 min head start in a women's only race. I can understand this if it's a mixed (M/F) race, but not women only. They should have all started at the same time, there's no advantage having the pack wait 20 minutes.