July 2002 Newsletter

Rock Around the Boston Clock?

George Gavras sends along the following note and question:

"I've been wondering how many other Boston Marathon enthusiasts have been trying to figure out why this year's men's winning time (2:09:02) is relatively so much slower than the women's winning time (2:20:43) - the first two women finished under Uta Pippig's course record. But the men's winning time was more than two minutes off the men's course record?

A paragraph in the June issue of Runner's Gazette might provide an answer:

It says the time clock on the truck ahead of the lead runners stopped working for a while right after the race's start. From that point on, the clock showed a time 2 minutes faster than the actual time. Because of this error, the lead runners thought they were running too fast, and slowed down the pace. When the clock was finally reset, the surprised runners increased the pace. But a chance at the men's CR had disappeared.

-- George Gavras

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