RECORDS SHATTERED AND OTHER MEMORABLE MARATHON MOMENTS
Russian mom Sylvia Skvortsova, celebrating her 33rd birthday, grabbed two records in her first-ever Vegas marathon run yesterday:
First she beat her nearest male challenger and picked up a bonus Megabucks $25,000 to go with her $20,000 first-place women’s win, and second by coming in under 2:30 for the 26.2 mile she won a coveted position on the Russian Olympic team to run in Beijing this coming summer. Sylvia broke through the finish line tape I was holding with Siegfried & Roy manager, Bernie Yuman in two hours, 29 minutes and one second.
Her first cell-phone call was immediately to her husband and six-year-old daughter who were 10,000 miles away in a frigid near-Siberia border town 400-miles north of Moscow.
Then she told me through an interpreter: “There was so much energy from the people and the city of Vegas. It’s a completely new course for me, but I ran as fast as possible.” She also got a peck on the cheek from male winner, 30-year-old Christopher Cheboibich from Kenya who has never previously won a marathon and the Vegas run was his first ever to cross the line at 2:16.49–ahead of all the other challengers including last year’s winner, Joseph Kahuga.
He grabbed the first prize of $20,000 and promises to return next year. “I can’t believe Vegas because I ran through Paris and New York today. That was amazing because I was in the desert. To win my first race in Vegas is difficult to believe, but I will be here again next year.”
Our local Vegas hero Abebe Yimer placed 8th at 2:24.20. To me though, the real hero of the day was 15-year-old Britney Bergeron who won $1,500 as the very first to cross the line in her wheelchair after one hour 15 seconds on the course.
Britney was brutally stabbed at just 10-years-of age and left paralyzed for dead! It was her first marathon, too, and she was ecstatic. I was also rooting for two other elite women: Tegla Louroupe and her fellow Kenyan protégé Eliza Chemwetich, making her debut.
Their remarkable story has all the makings of a future TV movie of the week. Tegla started out in life barefoot, walking 6-miles each day to school each way! She eventually became an internationally acclaimed marathon winner. In 2003 she launched a Peace Run in a war-torn African region. A young, then 20-year-old Eliza Chemwetich also walked barefoot for 36-hours over 120-miles to take part! They met because Elizabeth won the race, and Tegla persuaded her to be the next ambassador! Now as firm friends they ran the Vegas marathon for the first time together. Tegla came in 3rd with 22:41.37–an amazing accomplishment since she had no time for training–and her sidekick placed 9th at 3:05.53!
She told me: “Vegas is a wonderful race and we’ll both come back. I didn’t have much preparation, so I wasn’t expecting to make 3rd place–I’m really happy.” She went back with a winners purse of $5,000–a fortune in Kenyan back-country villages!
The Zappos 3rd annual LV Marathon was also about fun and romance with a Guinness World record book turn out of 207 Elvis look and dress-a-likes! One Elvis even ran with a Marilyn Monroe double–and they along with more than 50-other couples got married or renewed vows at the Mile 5 “Run Through” wedding chapel where the Reverend Jamie Firzlaff performed the mass ceremony in split seconds under three minutes!
Incidentally, Zappos, a Henderson internet retail phenomenon, fielded 200 staff as runners in the Marathon complete with its 33-year-old CEO, Tony Hsieh.
It was a bone chilling 35 degrees pre-dawn at the Mandalay Bay starting line where runners stretched so far south it took 22-minutes for the more than 17,000 athletes (up from 10,00 from the first year) from 40 nations around the world to cross the start line and activate their first-time ever shoe computer chip technology to track time-scores. It was an awesome sight as fireworks lit up the golden glows of the sun coming up over the desert.
Bernie and I also “sounded” the air-horns to start the elite female runners race. They started out with an 18:03 time advantage over the men, and the guys never caught up to the girls! Our platform overlooking the starting line was the perfect place for incredible Elvis Presley impersonator, Brandon Powell to belt out “Viva Las Vegas” and several other “King” hits to encourage the mob of marthoners. In addition, Venetian headliners, Blue Man Group put on two special 45-minute live shows on a special stage set up at the Fashion Show Mall. Cast members of Spamalot manned one of the many water-stations and Cirque du Soleil members distributed medals to participants crossing the finish line. Other than New Year’s Eve, this is the only time on our annual calendar that the Strip is shut down!
To close down 26.2 miles of Vegas streets requires year-round planning and an extra extensive array of people, equipment and supplies. Here are some of the fun facts and figures that you know I love to collect, including: 22 camera positions, six helicopters and 75 crew members to facilitate three-hours of live coverage on our local CBS-TV station, KLAS; $1.1 million worth of running shoes on the feet of 17,000 participants; 1,000 eight foot tables for water cups at 28 water stations; 27 five-foot clocks; 50 computers; 60 cellular phones; 29,000 runner and volunteer T-shirts; 6,700 yards of barricade tape; 185,000 safety pins to hold bib numbers; 8,200 credentials for staff, volunteers and media; 4,000 balloons; 40,000 No Parking signs; 500 banners along the course; 350 University School of Nevada Medical Center professionals staffing the finish line field hospital; 250 stretchers; 17,000 pounds of ice; 4,500 water station volunteers; 1.5 million paper cups; 17,000 Mylar blankets; 300 tubes of petroleum jelly; 200 Course Marshals; 22,500 feet of rope; 470 portable toilets; 2,500 trash cans; 55,000 gallons of water; 7,500 race day volunteers; 9,500 gallons of Gatorade; 250 signs at the finish line; 167 massage therapists; 350 volunteer ham-radio operators and 218 wonderful police officers.
Bernie Yuman, my co-partner said it best: “If a marathoner enters just two events a year they will make sure one of them is now Vegas. There may well be the Champs Elysee and Manhattan’s 5th Avenue, but there is only one Las Vegas Strip. We have come so far in just three-years, I feel confident next year we’ll be close to 25,000 entrants, and by 2010 almost at 50,000 runners.”
And since Sylvia had no time to celebrate her birthday because she was in training for the race last night, she went out on the town to hit all of our nightclubs and dance those feet a little further!