Posted: March 6, 2005

Athletics: Math Lesson Dominates LA Marathon Technical Meeting

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

LOS ANGELES (05-Mar) -- The technical meeting for tomorrow's City of Los Angeles Marathon held this afternoon went over the usual ground of placement of elite fluids, rules of competition, the schedule for tomorrow's race. But most of the meeting resembled a mathematics lesson, as elite athlete coordinator Bill Orr explained the intracacies of the $75,000 "Challenge" and related prize and bonus money.

Orr stood in front of a white board which displayed the details of the prize and time bonus on offer. The individual male and female winners will each receive $25,000 plus a Honda Accord EX V-6 automobile valued at $26,400. Prize money will be paid ten-deep down to $2,500 for tenth. However, prize money for places 7-10 will be reduced by 50% for men who run slower than 2:16:30 and women who run slower than 2:39:00.

Stay with me. Time bonuses begin at $75,000 for a man who breaks 2:07:00 down to $1,000 for a sub-2:14. The top time bonus for women is a more modest $20,000 for a sub-2:26:00; that goes down to $1,000 for a sub-2:24:00.

Orr went through those pedestrian figures swiftly, so he could begin to discuss the "Challenge" where the first runner to cross the finish line, male of female, will receive an additional $75,000. Fourteen elite women will start at 7:57 a.m. and 15 minutes and 50 seconds later, the elite men and the rest of the women will start. As the race progresses, race officials placed on the lead vehicles traveling with the respective female and male fields will flash signs out of the window, alerting the athletes to the current gap between the leading women and men. The gap will be updated every mile, and should it fall on average by more than 36 seconds per mile, the first man will overtake the first woman by the finish line.

The gap last year was much larger (20:30), allowing 49 year-old Tatiana Pozdnyakova to defeat David Kirui, who was young enough to be Pozdnyakova's daughter. Luybov Denisova entered this year's race knowing that the gap would be slimmed by perhaps a few minutes, but she was shocked when she found out that it was reduced by 4:40. The figure was released at Thursday's press conference, and Denisova briefly considered pulling out of the race before deciding to stay in the field.

The broader question is, no matter what the gap, can an athlete who is competing against runners of his or her gender concentrate on beating another competitor he or she cannot see? Also, are the women at a disadvantage because their lead pack will be smaller than the men's?

"I told him not to think about it," one manager told RRW she had advised her athlete about the "Challenge," worried he would go out too fast trying to bring down the gap early.

Since the race does not employ pacemakers, there is no way to know how fast the women will go out in relation to the men.

Television viewers will be kept abreast of the gap, and the tension created by this device is said to be good for broadcast ratings. Organizers boasted of strong ratings last year.