Posted: December 3, 2005

Athletics: Las Vegas Marathon - You Can Bet On It

From David Monti

© 2005 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

The organizers of the new Las Vegas Marathon scheduled for Sunday announced today that gamblers will be able to place a bet on the outcome of "The Challenge," the handicap division where the top women are given a headstart over the men.

"This is a very exciting development that speaks to the quality of our professional runners and instantly establishes the New Las Vegas Marathon as a serious race," said New Las Vegas Marathon President William A. Burke.

The first athlete to cross the finish line, male or female, will receive a bonus of $50,000 on top of the $50,000 first prize guaranteed to both the first man and woman. The women will start 14 minutes and 40 seconds ahead of the men, and gamblers can wager on whether the top man will catch the top woman. Wagers will be taken at the Mandalay Bay Casino, a race sponsor.

The edge would seem to go to the men, based on the elite field announced last week and the dymanics of a typical marathon. The time gap equals the difference between the personal best times of the fastest man, Titus Munji (2:06:15) and Margaret Okayo (2:20:43) plus 12 seconds (NOTE: It was not calculated that way, but that is how it turned out --Ed.). Given that the men's elite field is larger and somewhat more uniform in quality, that increases the chances of a pack forming to share the work and mount an effective chase. The women's field has less depth, with Okayo having much stronger credentials than the other women (she's won New York twice, London and Boston once, and has run over three minutes faster than any other woman in the field). That would give rise to the scenario of a woman running alone trying to hold off a small pack of men who have the additional advantage of seeing her in the distance.

By way of example, the top woman would have to run under 2:23:40 to win "The Challenge" if the winning man runs 2:09:00. To illustrate the relative difficulty of those marks, men have broken 2:09:00 30 times this year while women have broken 2:23:40 just 13 times.

The consensus amongst managers RRW spoke to today was that the women were at a disadvantage.

"I'm so disappointed," said one manager who did not wish to be identified. "It's made for the men. I feel it's very unfair."