Chip times or not.

Get a load of this.....at the Nike Women's Marathon held in San Francisco, the overall winner was not declaired the winner. Huh? Yep...24-year-old Arien O'Connell, a fifth-grade teacher from New York City, ran the fastest time of any of the women. Problem was she did not start with the elite women who started 20 minutes earlier......She ran a 2:55:11 a pr by 12 minutes. At the awards ceremony race officials called out third place winner....then second place winner and then overall winner who ran 3:06. Arien went to race officials who confirmed her time but said that since she did not run in the elite race she was not the official winner. Isn't that what chip timing is all about? I remember a couple years ago at the Caesar Rodney half marathon.....Betsy Carpenter was going to go for a new age group state record in the 50-54 age group. Problem was she started the race about 4 minutes late. But with chip timing she was able to get a gun time and a chip time. We allow chip times for those age 40 and over and Betsy had her record. As a race director i believe that race officials in San Fran made the wrong call. Here is the link to the article in the SF Chronicle.....what do you think?http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/21/BAUC13L3GQ.DTL&tsp=1