Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Nike does the right thing!

Got this info from Vanilla at Half Fast.
Nike is announcing today that it recognizes Arien O'Connell as a winner in last weekend's Nike Women's Marathon completing the full race in 2:55:11. She shattered her previous time and achieved an amazing accomplishment.

Arien will receive the same recognition and prize, including a Tiffany & Co. trophy, the full marathon elite group winner received. Arien was unfortunately not immediately recognized as a race winner because she did not start the race with the elite running group, which is required by USATF standards. Because of their earlier start time, the runners in the elite group had no knowledge of the outstanding race Arien was running and could not adjust their strategies accordingly.

Learning from the unique experience in this year's race, Nike has decided today to eliminate the elite running group from future Nike Women's Marathons. Next year, all runners will run in the same group and all will be eligible to win.

Nike has a proven track record of supporting athletes and we're proud to be able to honor Arien and other athletes who surpass their goals and achieve great accomplishments.

7 comments:

jen said...

Awesome! I was shocked when I read the article about her getting the shaft. That's a blazing fast time and she deserves the first place trophy.

Irene said...

Hooray! It was so ridiculous of them to not recognize her as the over all winner, just because she didn't register as an elite. What ever happened to their slogan of "Just do it?" She certainly did it! Thanks for sharing the news! Ill pass it along.

Legs and Wings said...

Excellent. The more I read of this the happier I become with Nike. Great story. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Thank goodness! I was confused. I'm really glad for her!

Julianne said...

Ha! And it took them 2 days to think of their strategy but at least they fixed it. I'm glad we did something about it, too! Yay!

Erik said...

Glad they finally woke up!

E

>>Linked<<

Laurie said...

Wow this is amazing!! Congrats to Arien!!