Boston Marathon organizers reverse course, decide to pay this year’s top female runners the same as the men

Jessica Chichester finished with the fifth-fastest women’s time at this year’s Boston Marathon. If she had qualified as an elite runner going into the race, the 31-year-old nurse practitioner would have been awarded $15,000 for her finish. The same would have been true if she placed fifth in the men’s race, elite status or not.

Instead, she received no prize money. In addition, 13th-place finisher Veronica Jackson did not receive the $1,800 award for her placement, and 14th-place Becky Snelson didn’t get the $1,700 prize for her finish.

But on Thursday, more than two weeks after the race, the Boston Athletic Assn. announced that it will award prize money to those three women — plus two top-five finishers in the women’s over-40 division — even though they did not start the race with the elite female runners.

“I could not be more happy that the BAA has decided to recognize not only the race I ran, but the races that Veronica and Becky also ran,” Chichester said, according to BuzzFeed.

Women who qualify and and register for the elite women’s start begin the race about 28 minutes before the first mass wave of runners in an effort to allow the top female finishers stand out at the end of the race. Net times are used to determine the place finishers, but according to race rules, only women who start with the elite runners are eligible for prize money.

Such a rule does not apply to the men’s categories, whose elite runners do not have a separate start time.

“As opposed to starting men and women at the same time, and ultimately having the female competitors lose each other among packs of men (and potentially receive pacing assistance), the EWS [elite women’s start] allows athletes to compete without obstruction,” race spokesperson T.K. Skenderian told BuzzFeed.

He added that the elite women’s start “gives the fastest women the chance to race each other openly” and “allows the women’s race to get more TV coverage.”

Skenderian also told BuzzFeed that the exception is being made this year because of the extreme weather conditions all the runners endured on race day.

“Given the nature of this year’s race, we want to recognize and celebrate some of the performances that made this year’s race special,” he said.

But Skenderian added that the BAA will discuss whether this year’s rule change should be made permanent.

“We remain committed to having a separate women’s race to continue to highlight these athletes and remain willing to address individual athlete’s requests for inclusion in that group,” he said.

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii