Los Angeles, CA (14 March 2024) — As it has in thirteen previous editions (2004-2014; 2022-2023), the 2024 Los Angeles Marathon presented by ASICS will stage their unique McCourt Foundation Marathon Chase this Sunday at the event’s 39th running. The Chase is an exciting 26.2-mile race-within-a-race competition that will highlight the talented runners of the women’s and men’s pro fields in an all-out duel to the finish line.
The 39th running of the Los Angeles Marathon will be held on Sunday, March 17, taking over 26,000 runners from Dodger Stadium to Century City along a course highlighting many of LA’s iconic landmarks.
The McCourt Foundation Marathon Chase will provide a special winner-take-all competition among the elite runners that will play out live on local television KTLA Channel 5, as well as streaming on KTLA.com and KTLA+ digital media.
To ensure this unique racing format is a fair competition, the women’s pro starting time was determined by a close assessment of the makeup of this year’s professional fields. Once the two pro fields settled, race officials determined the differential would be 17:15, a difference that boils down to 2:03 for every 5km (actually, 2:02.6, but 2:03 is easier to follow), or 39.5 seconds per mile. Any gap less than 2:03 over each 5km means the women are leading the Chase. Any gap more than 2:03/5km means the men are coming on.
The hope is with this differential in play, the top female and male runners will reach the final mile heading to the Century City finish within spittin’ distance of each other. The first runner to reach the finish line will receive a $10,000 bonus beyond their first-place prize purse.
“The McCourt Foundation Marathon Chase is the professional race format that allows us to create excitement through innovation,” says Murphy Reinschreiber, the LA Marathon’s Chief Operating Officer. “The Chase is two and half hours of gamified pro running coverage featuring data analysis by our expert commentators to predict if, and when, the catch will happen. The men’s and women’s leaders engage in a split-screen battle right to the finish chute to win the coveted prize money bonus. There’s no chance that the race coverage suffers from solo leaders running away with the race from early miles.” (Fingers crossed)
The top runners in this year’s LA Marathon are well matched, and can expect good weather conditions for Sunday morning’s start. The weather forecast predicts temperatures in the low 50sF (10-13C) between the 6:30 a.m. wheelchair start and 9:10 a.m. pro runners field’s expected finish. According to the weather prediction, the average runners can expect a high temperature of 69F (20.5C) at 2 p.m.
Leading this year’s professional women’s field is defending LA Marathon champion Stacy Ndiwa of Kenya (PB, 2:31:00). She will face a stern challenge from two-time Belarus Olympic Marathon fifth-place finisher, Olga Mazuronak (PB, 2:23:54), and former Boston and Chicago Marathon champion Atsede Bayisa of Ethiopia (PB, 2:22:03).
Trying to run them down will be the men’s pro field, headed by Belay Asefa Bedada of Ethiopia (PB, 2:06:39). Well, isn’t this the way it always happens? Bedada is now OUT, having contracted typhoid and couldn’t make the trip to LA.
Chief among the remaining men is Victor Kipchirchir of Kenya (PB, 2:06:54 from finishing third at the 2023 Doha Marathon), and Dominic Ngeno also hailing from Kenya (PB, 2:07:26 off his third place finish in Eindhoven 2023). The next best PR among the men belongs to Cosmas Kiplimo of Kenya with 2:09:44 (11th, 2022 Linz, Austria Marathon).
The loss of Bedada also reconfigures the Chase differential, dropping it to 17:00, or 2:00 even for every 5K, or just under 39 seconds per mile.
Since its revival in 2022, the McCourt Foundation Marathon Chase has brought back the race-within-a-race competition between the women’s and men’s pro runners in the Los Angeles Marathon. This competition existed under various names from 2004 to 2014. During that 11-year span, women held a 7-4 advantage over the men. After exciting finishes the past two years, the margin is now 9-4 in favor of the women.
In 2022, Ethiopia’s Delvine Meringor (2:25:04) held off hard-charging John Korir of Kenya (2:09:08) to win the Marathon Chase by a scant eight seconds, the closest finish in Chase history. Last year, Kenya’s Stacy Ndiwa ran away with the women’s race in a personal-best time of 2:31:00, and in doing so held off men’s winner Jemal Yimer of Ethiopia (2:13:14) in the homestretch on Santa Monica Boulevard to secure the winner-take-all bonus by 32 seconds. Yimer waited one mile too long before breaking free of his men’s rivals to catch Meringor. But that’s the intrigue of the Marathon Chase.
The 39th Los Angeles Marathon presented by ASICS begins airing on KTLA-5 at 6 a.m. Pacific time Sunday, 17 March. The wheelchair competition kicks of the day’s racing at 6:30. The pro women will begin at 6:43:00, followed by the pro men and first wave of LA marathoners at 7:00.
Sprinkled in among the 26,000 runners will be 95 special Legacy Runners who have completed all 38 previous LA Marathons. This group will mark 1000 total miles run on the LA route when they go by Disney Hall in downtown LA between miles four and five. Being a legacy broadcaster in LA myself, I offer particular salutes to these intrepid runners.
Another special runner will mark her return to Los Angeles this Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of her historic victory in the inaugural women’s Olympic Marathon in 1984. Joan Benoit Samuelson will hold the finish line tape to welcome the McCourt Foundation Chase winner across the line.
It was Joanie’s victory in LA `84 that catalyzed LA city leaders to commemorate her run with a new City of Los Angeles Marathon, which came about in 1986.
”I was 11 years old watching that Olympic Marathon in my parents, living room,“ recalled America’s second woman’s Olympic Marathon medalist, Deena Kastor. Deena took home the bronze medal in Athens, 2004. “It was later that year that I began to run.”
Deena will join me, along with KTLA‘s, Derrin Horton for Sunday’s race call. The show begins at 6:00 am Pacific with the wheelchair field rolling out of Dodger Stadium at 6:30.
L.A. stood as the only major city marathon in the world that did not miss a year due to Covid-19. The 2020 race was contested just three days before the whole world went into lockdown. The LA fields understandably saw reductions in 2021-2023. This year, LA has rebounded, drawing the second largest field in race history with over 26,000 entrants expected.
CLOSEST CHASE RACES
- 2022 – Differential = 16:05 – women’s winning margin – :08
- 2006 – Differential = 16:46 – women’s winning margin – :16
- 2023 – Differential = 18:19 – women’s winning margin – :32
- 2009 – Differential = 16:57 – men’s winning margin – :38
- 2014 – Differential = 17:41 – women’s winning margin – :41
Overall, women lead Challenge series 9-4
Last male win: 2011 when Ethiopia’s Markos Geneti ran 2:06:35 CR
Women have won the last 5 Challenges (2012-2014; 2022-2023.
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