Marathon Challenge

I was excited this morning in reading the Sunday Sports section of the Daily News because the headline was:

Marathon’s challenge is a question of time.

I was even more inspired when I read the sub-headline:

Challenge differential has been source of controversy.

It was very unusual to find the word challenge in both the headline and sub-headline. But wait, that’s not all, there were challenges throughout the entire article.

In 2004, the first year of the challenge, the average of the male winners in all previous L.A. Marathons was compared to the female average to create a time of 20:30 that the men no hope.

If this had been the differential last year, Denisova would have won the challenge by 10 seconds. In fact, the difference between the top men and women finishers in two years of the challenge has been 16:35.

... who helped come up with the idea for the challenge and was part of the group that decided on the time difference.

The challenge creates the potential for an exciting finish to the Marathon.

... will be challenged by fellow Kenyans

... who won the challenge in 2004