Arien O’Connell undeniably ran the fastest time at the Nike Women’s Marathon this past weekend. She had a tremendous race, she ran a 12 minute PR, and now she has a great story to tell her friends.
What Arien did not do, however, was win the race. Just because she ran 11 minutes faster than her next closest competitor, she was not the first woman to cross the finish line. Nora Colligan was.
Should there have been a 20 minute head start for the “elite” women? Probably not. Should some of those “elite” women have signed up as elites? Probably not. Should Arien have signed up as an elite? Questionable.
The fact remains, however, that there was an elite field, that for whatever reason did have a 20 minute head start, and the rules pertain to the first person to cross the line. Nora crossed it 9 minutes before Arien did.
I hope that Nike and the city of San Francisco use this fiasco to improve the management of their race next year, and should they decide to offer some prize money to Arien for her great effort out there on the race course, that would be great. However, they should not take the win away from Nora since she was in fact the one that won the race.
The elite start is a mainstay of large marathons, usually to allow the women a chance to shine and to make it easy for media vehicles to follow them so that they do not get lost in the crowd. However, the Nike race fails to draw an actual elite group of women to race, otherwise they wouldn’t have been beaten to the line despite a 20 minute head start. How the group that starts with the elite women were chosen for this race, I don’t know.
A quick search on a few of the women in the elite field returns recent marathon times ranging from low to high 3 hour races. With nothing to go on other than an elite designation, Arien is nowhere close to being an elite runner, nor are most of the women that started in the elite corral. If Nike isn’t already, they should base their elite corral on the top women with qualifying times rather than whatever flawed system they are currently using.
Better yet, since the race is predominantly run by women with only 15 men in the top 50 finishers this year, they should consider doing away with an elite start 20 minutes ahead of the rest of the field and just let them race it out the normal way. Give the “elite” runners a chance to stretch out and do some striders and then start at the head of the pack, and otherwise let everybody start at the same gun.
No matter how you cut it, though, Arien O’Connell did not win the 2008 Nike Women’s Marathon.
Update: It appears as though Nike is going to award a separate award in a new category to Arien and will get rid of the elite start next year
(More Info & Photo Credits: Full Results – Race Recap – San Francisco Chronicle)
Blaine,
That is an interesting perspective. But I do think I remember reading somewhere in the USATF rules about official times being the “gun time” and not a chip time. I looked up the results and couldn’t see if they differentiated between the two.
Your point does make sense though. At the Indy Mini-Marathon the first 500 finishers get a Top 500 Finishers medal, even if someone later in the pack actually beats their time.
So in this case Nora is the first finisher and Arien the first place. A pretty small but important distinction. I would agree with your other points about Nike needing to rethink or revamp their “elite” ideas though.
She was robbed. I hope USATF/Nike/Whoever is responsible recognizes that and rethinks the way things are done in the future. Corporate crooks…
While the criteria of the elite field could be questioned, I think the primary consideration is this: Should the crowd cheer for the “real winner” 9 minutes after the first person to cross the finish line comes through?
Running is such a simple sport--first person to the finish wins. Turning it into something more complicated with offsets for start time would diminish the appeal.
However, two failings on the participant side exist:
1) A participant that was competitive in the field failed to sign up as elite.
2) Many participants who did not have a prayer of competing for a top finisher place signed up as elite.
Completely agree, although while a participant that was competitive failed to sign up as an elite, I agree with her that she isn’t really an “elite” runner so if the race isn’t going to cater to actual professionals they should either explicitly specify what constitutes “elite” for their race or should term it something different (or, ideally, not allow people to self-select but instead select the best based on previous race performances.)
That’s just foolish. If they are going to go by gun time, then start everybody at the same time. Better yet, do like Disney does and start the elites off on a different route that merges later. Jeez!
the elite division was an invite only field, she had no option to sign up for it therefore calling the fact that she didnt “questionable” poor reporting. Do some research into these things before we form opinions that we post online.
oh, and for the record, Nike has recognized her as the winner.
Eric,
The fact that she didn’t sign up as an elite as questionable as poor reporting is irrelevant; my point is that she is not an elite runner and I was responding to the scores of people that are saying she should have been in the elite field. As far as I could tell, there were very few if any actual elite runners there, and there certainly weren’t any elite performances. Hence why I use quotes around my reference to the “elite” field throughout the article.
As for research, the elite field was self selected by individuals who had to apply to be a part of it by October 1st with past marathon or half marathon finishing times and were then either accepted or rejected. Based on the pedigree of some of the elite field, I can’t imagine what sort of times somebody would have to have run in order to be rejected from the elite field.
And for the record, do you have a link to Nike recognizing her as a winner? It doesn’t appear in the press releases on the race website, which still list Nora as the winner.
This story made it into the New York Times this morning.
Ms. O’Connell states, â��I was running 3:07 at the time, I assumed that the kind of people who were going to be there were running like 2:35 marathons.â��
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/sports/othersports/23marathon.html
I think the blame has to go to the organizers here. They needed to do a better job seeding the race and reviewing every times to see if they merited entry into the elite corral.
Usually you only see the head start when there is a large number of professional runners in the field, this clearly wasn’t the case. Were the organizers hoping to attract a few world-class athletes? Did they realize picking a weekend between Chicago and New York would severely hinder their ability to do that? I can’t imagine the top athletes would opt to skip a world marathon major race for another marathon. Maybe thats another sign of poor organizing.
Hey, I’m a little bias (Arien is my sister ^^see the name) but your argument is not sound without the facts.
I understand that a marathon is not a time trial. That is a fair contention but this story is really about the flaws in how marathons are run. The fact that non-elites (elite is a subjective term, I am sure you know, unless it is quantified) in this race or the Chicago marathon compete and better the times of the elites means the hierarchy systems in which marathons are run is flawed.
As I’m sure you have picked up she did not consider herself elite. She, in fact, runs with a team in which this time would rank her as 6th. She is above average, that is a given (actually average IS a objective term, one these races should try using).
Your quote, “Should some of those “elite” women have signed up as elites? Probably not. Should Arien have signed up as an elite? Questionable.” If one runs the best time by 11 minutes I very much doubt it is questionable. What Nike was trying to do is bump up this race up to be like Boston: elite. It is not and it was not her intention to appear elite (or get this much press).
They also didn’t tell the countless other woman that they were not in contention. In fact there was not even an elite category for men. She actually crossed the finish line 2nd FOR THE MEN because all the men started with the non-elite. In fact Arien only did not come in “3rd” despite the 20 min lagg by 3 mins.
You might say that the organization of this race is at fault but the point this story is trying to make is that all marathon hierarchy rankings are flawed. If my sister did not prove it, the Chicago marathon did.
holy crap u suck. well i think the one with the fastest time should win. if that means its an jane doe or somebody with a name. and if your are gonna delay starts like a time trial then it should be based on time.
fastest runner wins!!!!!!!!!!!!!
John & Sam,
That’s the point of my article as well. The system as it was in place was flawed, but that does not change the fact that under the current rules she did not win the race.
I don’t think that she doesn’t deserve recognition (which she is getting after all), I am just saying that under the current rules, she didn’t win. There are no rules that the fastest runner wins, only that the first to cross the line wins.
A system where there is no real need for a head start and that got bit in the ass as a result was bound to happen sooner or later, and I’m glad that it did because now maybe we will see improvements in our sport.
I just wanted to point out to everybody that just because she ran the fastest time doesn’t mean that she won the race.
As for whether she should have signed up as an elite being questionable, you can only state that she ran the best time by 11 minutes after she’s run the race, but that was weeks after the October 1st application period for elite status had ended, and I could find no definition of “elite” on the official website. Even her time in this race puts her over 10 minutes behind the Olympic qualifying time, and before the race her PR was well behind that. Plenty of women that can run the OQ time are nowhere near being elite. That is why it would have been questionable for her to apply for elite status given the information at her disposal.
And that is why I am glad that Nike will move to a better system going forward that is more appropriate to the race they have, as opposed to the race that they wish they had.
It is awesome that someone could pr by 12 minutes…That is huge. Congrats to her. At least this situation creates a presidence for other race’s
I am glad to hear nike is stepping up to the plate to recognize her as the fastest women finisher..she deserves that.
Sorry, I don’t care what the rules say, they just don’t make any sense. Level playing field please.
Everyone starts together, except for wheelchair.
Arien served those California putzes!!!!! Go girl, way to rep NYC!!!!!!!!!
I fully believe that Arien did win under the rules. I agree with gun time rather than chip time determining the winner. When there are multiple waves there are multiple guns. Her gun time was faster than Nora’s.
While that would make sense if the rules stated gun time, they don’t, that’s just what the media is saying. The rules only refer to the order in which people cross the finish line.