You're wrong. Here are the elite that the organisers were still able to invite, even though Rio and Berlin got some of the best marathoners :
Dickson Chumba
Tsegaye Kebede (Don't know what happened to him)
Kimetto (Injured)
Abel Kirui
Just like the commentator said, there are 100000 ($) reasons for the best athletes in the world to participate in this race.
I'm not gonna lie, watching Fartlek during this race was one of the most exciting marathons I've ever watched. It kept me thinking ... are they going too hard? isn't it better to just keep the same pace? who's gonna stay with the lead group? Who's gonna explode first? Is the chase pack gonna catch up?
Also, most of the time, there is an exiting finish between 2 great athletes in Chicago, just like today.
Even though I hated the first slow 10K, I loved today's race.