One Second Could Mean $100,000 at B.A.A. Half-Marathon

Boston — Seconds always count at a road race, but here on Sunday at the 12th B.A.A. Half-Marathon one second could be worth $100,000. That’s because two men —Ethiopia’s Ali Abdosh and Kenya’s Sam Chelanga– are tied on total time in the inaugural three-race B.A.A. Distance Medley which concludes with Sunday’s race and the largest non-marathon payout in all of road running.

“It’s unprecedented,” said Boston Athletic Association executive director Tom Grilk at a press conference here at the B.A.A.’s headquarters on Trinity Place in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. “I don’t know of another series which is scored and timed the same way.”

Both Abdosh and Chelanga have an accumulated time of 42 minutes and 21 seconds after last April’s B.A.A. 5-K and last June’s B.A.A. 10-K. So, only a one-second margin would mean $100,000 for one man and nothing for the other in the winner-take-all Medley. Read more