You be the judge?

I wrote in an earlier blog about the issue with the Nike San Francisco Women's Marathon not awarding the fastest women her first place prize since she did not start in the elite group. Same thing happened in Chicago with the 4th place finisher Wesley Korir also being denied prize money since he did not start with the elite group. Jim Estes, the race referee of Chicago Marathon ruled that Korir was not eligible for the elite prize money because he had been in a seperate race. The following statement came from a publication i subscribe to called Road Race Management. The sidebar called: Elite Start Creates Confusion went on to say that both the Nike San Fran Marathon and the Chicago came out with the following statement: Chicago organizers announced that they would give Korir and undisclosed monetary "bonus" for his performance in Chicago and in San Francisco, race sponsor Nike announced that it would award the women who ran the fastest time equal prize money to the elite race winner. I agree with both decisions......case closed.