Marathon Me

Wow, yesterday’s post sparked off a very heated debate.  I had by far the most comments we’ve ever received on a post (32 at the time of this writing).  I’m starting to feel like Nitmos or Mizfit.  But I’m sure that the comments will fall back off the cliff starting today

An interesting point to note, as pointed out by Steve Sission, is that the rules clearly state what *has* to happen.

They get it “wrong” because these are the rules.

In any elite race, the first person to cross the finish line wins. Chip times do NOT indicate the winner when everyone has the same start time. If you start 10 minutes back & do not pass me, you cannot beat me. Chips were developed when field sizes got so large that there was an unfair advantage to those who started up front & safety became a significant issue. In age-group fields, chip timing is the most convenient way to indicate winners but any race following USATF guidelines cannot use chip timing to determine winners.

USATF Rule 245 section 3
”The official time shall be the time elapsed between the start of the watches or timing devices resulting from an appropriate start signal and when the athlete reaches the finish line. The actual elapsed time between when an athlete reaches the starting line & finish line can be made known to the athlete, but will not be considered an official time.”

Again, under USATF rules, these are 2 separate races & the marathon CANNOT allow O’Connel to win.

So there you have it.  According to the official USATF rules, O’Connel can’t be declared the winner.

Obviously Nike is not in the business of pissing off it’s constituents, and after the massive uproar (which ranged all the way from ESPN to a local high school’s teachers lounge), Nike caved in to popular (well at least 50/50 popular) sentiment and issued the following statement:

Nike is announcing today that it recognizes Arien O’Connell as a winner in last weekend’s Nike Women’s Marathon with the fastest chip time, completing the full race in 2:55:11. She shattered her previous time and achieved an amazing accomplishment.

Arien will receive the same recognition and prize, including a Tiffany & Co. bowl, the full marathon elite group winner received. Arien was unfortunately not immediately recognized as a race winner because she did not start the race with the elite running group, which is required by USATF standards. Because of their earlier start time, the runners in the elite group had no knowledge of the outstanding race Arien was running and could not adjust their strategies accordingly.

Learning from the unique experience in this year’s race, Nike has decided today to eliminate the elite running group from future Nike Women’s Marathons. Next year, all runners will run in the same group and all will be eligible to win.

Nike has a proven track record of supporting athletes and we’re proud to be able to honor Arien and other athletes who surpass their goals and achieve great accomplishments.

Nike+ / Nike Running

So since they were only talking about a $350 Tiffany bowl, it made a lot of sense for them to award prizes to both women and hope the whole thing just goes away.

But they have taken Marathon Me’s advice and have “decided today to eliminate the elite running group from future Nike Women’s Marathons. Next year, all runners will run in the same group and all will be eligible to win. ”

See they should have called me before the race started and I could have saved everyone a lot of confusion.

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Tags: General, Marathons //