Can we just agree these bonuses are a stupid stupid idea?? If women want to compete with men they can start the same f***ing time the men do and race them head to head. 'Til then let's just realize that these are two seperate races that should have two seperate winners.
It would seem to be very bad form for Lyubov Denisova to whine about the LA Marathon and its Challenge Event, after she just got $35,000 and a car from them.
(See today's Let's Run headline)
http://www.letsrun.com/2005/la05.php
Via its Challenge, the LA Marathon race tried to do something interesting and exciting for the viewer of the race. It does not matter to the race whether the man catches and passes the woman, or the woman holds off the man to win. The key is to make it close. They tried their best, using Basil Honikman's formula, to make it close. The pass was around 25 miles.
If they had added another 45 seconds the lead man and lead woman would have been sprinting together for the tape inside the last quarter mile.
It is always bad form to "complain and whine" about an event after you have just cashed in big time.
See how many other big events this year want Lyubov Denisova to be a participant, knowing she might whine about the event to the press.
when you lose $75,000 because of an arbitrary decision (what men's/women's times determine the gap) and you are NOT able to know that decision at the time you commit to the race, you have a right to be pissed off. especially if that's how you make your living.
bad form or not, those clowns at the race need to get their act together. at least announce at the time of entry what the difference is.
It'd be pretty tough to announce the equilizer time ahead of time without knowing who's going to be racing. I know that the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon does the same sort of thing, only their bonus money is $250,000. They don't announce what the margin will be until a day or two before the race either. Of course, they have screwed up the last couple of years and not had it remotely close between the top man and top woman. It's not easy to nail that thing down to get a margin that is fair to everyone...
I think her definition of fair is like most people's, i.e. whatever benefits me. Any gap is "arbitrary," whether it be difference between men's and women's CRs, last year's difference, difference between PRs of top man and woman, etc. She's free to stay home, just as anyone who thought the course was too slow, the entry too steep, the hotels too shabby, or whatever.
They could have easily not had the money in the first place. I think the race directors did their best to see what kind of talent was on both sides. I think I read that if the best male and best female ran their PBs it would have been within 20 seconds or something based on the head start they gave. That is a pretty good guess.Plus the whining might cause other races to shy away from something like that.
atheist wrote:
when you lose $75,000 because of an arbitrary decision (what men's/women's times determine the gap) and you are NOT able to know that decision at the time you commit to the race, you have a right to be pissed off. especially if that's how you make your living.
bad form or not, those clowns at the race need to get their act together. at least announce at the time of entry what the difference is.
B. Lindquist wrote:
It'd be pretty tough to announce the equilizer time ahead of time without knowing who's going to be racing. I know that the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon does the same sort of thing, only their bonus money is $250,000. They don't announce what the margin will be until a day or two before the race either. Of course, they have screwed up the last couple of years and not had it remotely close between the top man and top woman. It's not easy to nail that thing down to get a margin that is fair to everyone...
no its very easy announce it ahead of time. you set the equalizer time to the difference between the men's and women's course records. or you pick some other arbitrary method that lets the athletes know at the time they enter if they have a shot at it.
fair or not, if you know ahead of time at least you can make an informed decision where to try to blow all your training
Yes She should be upset, but I would be more upset if I were Maiyo. In the last 300 meters, he lost a total of about $160,000.
But man it would have been a great race if all three of them were sprinting in together...
she still won a lot of money...if they had announced a time, how would she have had any idea whether or not she could have beat it not knowing who else was racing? Sign up, do the race, if you win you win, if you don't you don't! Oh...and take some PEDs in between there somewhere.
no worries wrote:
she still won a lot of money...if they had announced a time, how would she have had any idea whether or not she could have beat it not knowing who else was racing? Sign up, do the race, if you win you win, if you don't you don't! Oh...and take some PEDs in between there somewhere.
thats a lot easier to say when you arent the one out $75,000
They told her before she raced.
Unless they mislead her and stated a different handicap before she arrived in LA, I think her cry baby bitching ass should stfu.
They used data from something like 40 marathons to determine the handicap. If they used the world records, she wouldn't have had a chance.
Anytime there is a handicap people will whine.
This one worked.
The guy who got second proably pushed to hard to catch her and lost the race. The challenge may have effected the finish.
It made it much more interesting for the average viewer.
If her and her little helium sucking voice don't want to come back, I won't shed any tears.
She wasn't out the $75,000. She raced and she lost. She knew she had to finish ahead of the men and didn't.
yes, she was out 75,000. she could have gone for an appearance fee elsewhere. its all just petty bitching when you dont make your living off the money.
until you are ever in a position where you can support yourself through race winnings you all should stop your own whining about it. she's absolutely right. its not like she called a special press conference to complain about it. they asked her a question and she answered honestly.
those idiots at the race should set a time and stick with it.
Why doesn't she sue then. She knew she wouldn't know the handicap until right before the race, if she was worried about it, she shouldn't have signed up.
Most of what is in the paper is what she said on TV during her interview and during the victory ceremonies. It did put a damper on her course record and a great day.
They got it much closer this year. The men can say they got robbed last year if the women did this year. How can they get it much closer than this year?
The one thing they must always do to avoid this problem, is to announce the spread AT LEAST 3 months before the race so that runners can decide where to race in the spring and plan their training for the race they pick.
So they announce the 2006 differential today as 16:46, the difference between the men's and women's course records. Then, come race day next March the top woman in the field for whatever reason is a 2:30 runner and the best man or two is 2:08-2:09. By that standard, you have no chance of a real challenge competition whatsoever. The differential has to be based to some degree on who actually shows up. That said, there should be a way to factor in the inherent difference between chasing and being chased, and the relative strength of the two fields. The challenge concept is meant to create interest, not absolute fairness (which it can never do, anyway.) Or do we want to continue focusing on the charity-based stories at the back of the pack?
atheist wrote:
thats a lot easier to say when you arent the one out $75,000
As someone who IS out $75,000 (damn, if only several hundred people hadn't beaten me), I say she should shut her stupid mouth and think about why certain groups of people deserve a head start at all. Fucking communist. (Though I would love to see them do some age group head starts and for Ed Whitlock to come and trounce that whiny bitch.)
You are wrong and you do not understand big time events.
Denisova chose LA because she thought she'd maximize her earnings. She is not worth a large appearance fee at either London, or Boston, and would have found it hard to earn $35,000 plus the value of a car at either of those two Spring marathons, because the competition would have been much tougher than in LA.
It is the lack of sensitivity to the event organizers which is the problem.
That she is disappointed not to win an extra $75,000 is understandable. Ben Maiyo is disappointed too. That is the point of the challenge:- to make it close and exciting.
But it is bad form to complain about the race. Even if you are disappointed, don't bad mouth the race and associated sponsors, particularly on live TV and to the print media.
She'll feel the repercussions of her actions from other events this year.
This is why we should not let foreignerers into this country.
last year a 49 year old roided up Russian won the cash, the LA Marathon was just righting a wrong to the male gender this year.