LA Marathon offers big prize pot for gender challenge

Amane Gobena won the women’s race on Sunday at the LA Marathon, but she also won the event’s gender challenge, bringing in an additional $50,000 in prize money.

The gender challenge is an interesting spin on the usual style of race, making the women’s race competitive with the men’s and adding to the excitement at the finish.

Now in it’s eleventh year, the gender challenge at the LA Marathon gives the women a handicap over the men. They start earlier and whoever crosses the finish line first wins the prize pot. The handicap changes from year to year depending on the personal bests of the elite athletes competing.

This year the women were given a 17:41 headstart over the men and Gobena finished the race in 2:27:37. Gebo Burka won the men’s race in 2:10:37, meaning he crossed the finish 2:28:18 after the start of the women’s race, behind Gobena. Women have won the gender challenge seven of the 11 years.

Both Gobena and Burka also took home $25,000 for winning their respective men’s and women’s races.