Everyone starts together, except for wheelchair.

I am glad to hear nike is stepping up to the plate to recognize her as the fastest women finisher..she deserves that.

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.

fastest runner wins!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.