Stupidity in Nike & San Francisco

(Original Article followed by UPDATE at the end)

I'm not a distance runner. I only follow Track & Field during the Olympics every four years. So, I can't believe I'm commenting on a story about a Marathon.

Some things are just to stupid to explain, like when the fastest runner in a race doesn't win. It's especially stupid when a person runs the race according to the rules. The fastest runner wins, get it? Apparently the San Francisco Marathon & Nike didn't get the memo.

In case you didn't catch the original article, here's the link:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/21/BAUC13L3GQ.DTL&nopu=1

So here's the deal. The city of San Francisco & Nike look like idiots. This is because the woman who ran the fastest time wasn't allowed to win. Arien O'Connell wasn't allowed to win because she wasn't in the "elite" group. She didn't consider herself an elite competitor. Makes sense, after all the recent Olympic winner ran a half hour faster than O'Connell's time.

The organizers say she should have declared herself elite. I think maybe none of the other runners should have been allowed to be declared elite.

In other sports when their are separate heats or flights, it doesn't matter if you aren't in the fastest group. Fastest times still win/advance.

I could go on and on, I'll just let you fill in the blanks.

I want to finish this by saying I have always loved Nike. Nike is based in Oregon and grew up as a company as I was growing up as a person. I love the quality of the product. That said, Nike used to be about the athlete. They used to be for those outside the establishement. Now, it appears the company is about red tape, the establishment and bureacracy. Bill Bowerman and Steve Prefontaine might be rolling over in their graves. Shame on Nike. Shame on San Francisco.

I hope Jon Hendershott from Track and Field News Magazine.writes a cover article about the ridiculous city and ridiculous company who screwed up this race.

As far as I'm concerned, congratulations Arien O'Connell

UPDATE:

Apparently Nike has realized the error of its ways and recognized Arien O'Connell as "a winner" complete with prize money.

The link follows:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/22/BACI13MAIT.DTL

Kind of appropriate that a company named after the goddess of victory would want to recognize the actual victor.