LA Marathon Elite Women

The LA Marathon has a battle-of-the-sexes challenge. The first man or woman to cross the finish line wins a $100,000 challenge bonus. The women get a head start of 18 minutes 47 seconds, a handicap calculated by comparing the average times of top runners of each gender. In six previous challenges, the men and women have split, winning three times each.

This year’s challenge winner was Edna Kiplagat (63) of Kenya, with a time of 02:25:38. In terms of time, she finished in 16th place, 14 minutes behind the men’s winner Wesley Korir (also of Kenya), but her 18:47 minute head start made her the first person to cross the finish line. It looks like Teyba Naser (53) of Ethiopia crossed the finish line second with a time of 02:26:20, and Silvia Skvortsova (52) of Russia was third across the line with a time of 02:27:20…so 3 women beat the challenge.

Here are some shots from the starting line.