Excuse me, but I call bullshit.
Taken from the KLAS Channel 8 website:
A runner from Russia, Sylvia Skvortsova, won the Las Vegas Marathon 2007 with an unofficial finishing time of 2:29:02. The top men's finisher is Christopher Chebobibich from Kenya, who will take home $20,000. His unofficial finishing time was 2:16:49. The women are given an 18 minute lead in the race and this is the first time a woman has won the challenge.
How can someone WIN a marathon if she doesn't have the best time?
I'm not knocking Sylvia's accomplishment, which is remarkable, but just because she was the first person over the finish line doesn't make her the winner.
5 comments:
by those standards i could win if they gave me a two week head start and a car.
THANK YOU!
I'd be pissed off if I were that guy with the unpronounceable name.
What a joke.
I agree. The men's and women's times should be totally separate events, or a straight up even start. What a load of crap!
It's so nice when people I admire and respect agree with me! I get a warm, fuzzy feeling in my tummy.
I know the answer to this...
The key word in this phrase is CHALLENGE...
"The women are given an 18 minute lead in the race and this is the first time a woman has won the challenge."
Christopher Chebobibich was, is the LVM winner. He had the best overall time and received top prize money for that. But for this marathon they have a separate contest, or challenge. What they do is place all of the elite women runners (based on previous marathon times) out front and give them an 18 min. head start ahead of the elite men runners. There is a separate cash prize for the challenge winner. I think it was like 40K or something huge. The idea is to try and have a photo finish, or at least have at least one aspect of the race be in doubt throughout the final miles. In years past the woman had a lesser allotted head start time and subsequently the men have always caught them. So each year they have increased the head start in an attempt to have it be close at the end. Christopher Chebobibich won the marathon (Mens and overall). Sylvia Skvortsova won the womens and the challenge. Considering Silvia was still some 6 minutes ahead of Chebobibich at the finish, expect the lead time for the women to decrease next year.
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