How can you have the best time and not win???

From my perspective, the solution is simple.  Race event officials need to declare that a mistake had been made, publish the corrections and ask the people that received wards to return them to race officials so they could be given to the correct winner.

Mistakes happen all the time.  There is no reason to leave this mistake uncorrected. 

It sucks for her, but I fully understand the ruling by the RD and officials.

In running races that are chip timed, overall placings are usually handed out for the "gun" time and finish placing and not the chip time.  I've finished in running races in the top 2 or 3% but had people "behind" me run faster times because they started farther back in the field and had a minute or so lag to get across the timing mat.

She had a great race.  She put up a huge PR.  But she did not start with the "money" field, she started with the regular folks.

In most races there are not that many people that can put up a 3:07 (which was her PR based on the 12 minutes she said she beat her best by).  Shame on her for not stepping up and testing herself.  The RD will usually give a time cut off to run with the elites.

Interesting.  So it CAN happen.  Wow.

I always watch Kona and all the hupla and fanfair they give the top male and female in the pro division that cross the line first because the "won" the race.

I always imagined what would be done if, just if, some AGer had the race of a lifetime and beat the time.  I figured it would probably never happen, but what if........  We can dream, right?

The German guy that was the AG winner at Kona this year that came in right as C.W. was doing her Blazeman roll and then had to stand around waiting for her to finish her interview and such started 10 minutes behind her (or whatever the AGers start) and so beat all the female pros and came in like 12th or 13th overall for time.

Still not an overall win, but I'm not sure how deep they pay (I think top 10) but he would not have gotten a dime if he did crack the top.  He'll probably get a sponsorship and pro card though.

If she never considered herself to be in the elite class. Then perhaps she should start. The thing for her to do is to use this to motovate her even more, maybe she's just now tapping into her real potential.

Exactly.

Less than 2% of MALE marathoners ever break 3 hours.  I don't know the stats for the ladies.  She kicked some serious butt!

If she wants to pursue more, she can easily place or win in smaller marathons.  SF does not bring out the big guns compared to others like Chicago or Boston, but she would still be competitive in those if she wanted to probably.

The simple fact of the matter is she won the race. I see this case no different than say the infamous Baja 1000. The fact is the "elite" athletes themselves knew that there would be a group of people starting a set amount of time after them. This is no different than two trophy trucks starting twenty minutes apart or better yet a cyclist in a 40K TT.  The fact is it WAS the same course, conditions (yes could vary over the day, but minutes?), then it WAS the same race.

Elite runner or not you should expect the unexpected and push yourself to your own limits.

Andy,

I see a solution to this coming from the world of endurance sports car racing....Le Mans, Rolex Series, etc. RD's could easily award class winners as well as overall winners. Just like the  Audi R10 Diesel prototype can take the overall win as well as the P1 class win.

Why does everyone think time is the deciding factor here?  USATF rules specifically state that it is finishing position.

This was not an elite field; elite women run in the 2:30s.  She ran a different race.  If she had been up front, I doubt her time would have been as good.  She still might have won, but her time probably wouldn't have been as fast.  It's an entirely different race when you are running against someone else and not just the clock; the tactics are different, you run differently.  There's a reason WR are seldom set in the Olympics for distance events.

I understand the race organization's rationale; however, I think it's unfair.

• If you claim that the elites didn't have the opportunity to race her, because the 20 minute head start put them in a "different" race, then there ought to be another category of overall awards for the age groupers. Yes, perhaps, she was a sandbagger, but, on the other hand, maybe she didn't realize her race times were along the elite levels.
  
  
• In all the time I directed races, if races were chip timed, per USATF rules, places were determined by gun time (not actual place). A friend of mine successfully protested that at Marine Corps Marathon several years ago, as he did not start with the elites (separate corral, but not separate start time), but his gun time placed him fairly high overall (I forget exactly). It's been several years, so that may have changed.

I think the race organization and Nike did themselves a disservice by just brushing her off. They should have celebrated her achievement somehow, someway. But now, they just look like turds.

I guess I can say this, as I would never be in this position:  If I were the winner, I'd give the medal or trophy to her.  I would not be able to live with myself, if I knew someone else kicked my a$$ by over 10 minutes.  I would also agree with the comments about her time not being elite.  She ran a 6:40 (Olympic trial runners are a minute faster per mile) pace, which would smoke me and many others by far, but not many Olympic or professional runners (who I consider elite).  As far as racing the pack, from what I saw in the Olympics, racing the pack did not come into play until the last couple of miles.  Otherwise, they were racing themselves and a planned pace.  Heck, the Romanian woman winner wasn't even visible to the pack, and that didn't make the 2nd and 3rd place runners run any harder to catch her.

Here is an example of elites from the 2004 US Olympic Trials

1) Colleen De Reuck (CO) 2:28:25# $45,000*
2) Deena Kastor (CA) 2:29:38 $40,000*
3) Jen Rhines (PA) 2:29:57 $35,000*
4) Blake Russell (MA) 2:30:32 $18,000
5) Magdalena Lewy Boulet (CA) 2:30:50 $16,000
6) Heather Hanscom (VA) 2:31:53 $14,000
7) Sara Wells (MN) 2:33:15 $13,000
8) Susannah Beck (CAN) 2:34:44 $12,000
9) Jenny Spangler (IL) 2:36:30 $11,000
10) Linda Somers Smith (CA) 2:37:28 $10,000
11) Jenny Crain (OR) 2:37:36 $7,500
12) Cori Mooney (ID) 2:37:49 $6,500
13) Liz Wilson (OR) 2:38:18 $5,500
14) Lori Stich Zimmerman (TX) 2:38:44 $4,500
15) Beth Old (GA) 2:40:14 $3,500
16) Nicole Kulikov (CO) 2:40:28 $2,500
17) Mary Akor (CA) 2:40:37 $2,000
18) Nicole Hunt (MT) 2:40:39 $1,750
19) Turena Johnson Lane (GA) 2:40:58 $1,250
20) Kelly Flathers (CA) 2:41:16 $1,000

As much as I love the sport (both running and triathlons), this is one of the things about them that I absolutely hate.  Pros vs Age Groupers.

Fastest person should win, no matter if its a gun start or time trial start.  If everyone runs from the same point A to the same point B...whoever does it fastest should be crowned victor.  I don't care that they don't carry a "card", I don't care that they didn't register "pro" ahead of time, and I don't care that the race official can't be bothered to monitor age groupers as closely as elites.

Fastest time should be winner.  Period.

That being said, good for this woman.  I'm sure she is still quite happy with her own performance, and as someone else noted...she will most likely get a sponsorship and a pro card now (or however that works for runners).

Fastest time is a horrible way to determine winner.  How do you know who you are racing against?  It's impossible.

Races are run strategically.  You don't always run to get the fastest time, you run to try to win, or place as well as you can.  That's how it works.  To do so effectively, you have to know who it is that you're running against.

I agree that the elite start being 20 minutes in front is stupid.  If anything, that was the breakdown.  I disagree with the idea of an elite start.  They should be seeded out front, but everyone should start at the same time.

That being said, it still does not change the idea that the winner is the one who crosses the finish line first.  Time is ultimately irrelevant in determining this.  USATF Rule 245 covers this.  It states that the "order in which the athletes cross the finish line will be the official finish position", and that 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 reaching the finish line."

The whole "only elites are eligible for prizes" is false.  Anyone is eligible, assuming they can place appropriately.

I think you answered your own question there, by noting that a separate elite start wasn't the best idea in the world.

I'm completely down with positioning people in order based on pole times or something(similar to auto racing), but I'm not so keen on givng a certain group a head start and then claiming "first one across wins".  It's like they are trying to combine a time trial start with a gun start...and it just made the results look idiotic.

I remember reading an article awhile back about this happening in minor triathlon even, and the pro gave his prize to the AGer that beat him.

edit:

Uh, yes, he would have, or would have been forced to.  There is absolutely no rule stating that someone has to have entered as a pro or elite to win a prize.  The only reason it is an issue is because of the start time differences, that's it.

Again, awards are based on finish position.  That has nothing to do with status.

I am placing the blame 100% on the organization of the race itself.  My discussion at this point transcends this particular event, and leads into how idiotic of an idea it is to give people a head start and then claim "first one across wins".

Race organizers need to realize you cannot have your cake and eat it too, aka, you cannot have a time trial start, and treat the finish line as if it was a gun start.

Scout - That is good to know at least.  Next time she just needs to run 21 minutes faster than them, instead of just 11.

While her time is very impressive she didn't win the race. I do think they should get rid of the head start for the elites to fix this problem tho...

 The theory behind racing when it's not against the clock is to be the slowest finisher but ahead of everybody else. If the actual winner isn't racing against her how does she know she isn't in front.