SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- Running a marathon is an impressive accomplishment, but imagine winning! A runner from San Francisco won the non-binary race category of last year’s New York City Marathon.
Only to find out that they are ineligible for the prize money that’s supposed to come with the title.
Cal Calamia is a non-binary, trans-masculine runner who has dealt with several obstacles in their long-distance sport. Most recently, going head-to-head with the organizers of the New York City Marathon.
With support from their friends and family on the sidelines of the New York City Marathon, Calamia made a great time in the 26.2-mile race in November.
Calamia finished first in the non-binary race category. The New York City Marathon is the first major marathon to offer prize money to non-binary runners.
“It’s really important for me to have a space to compete in that acknowledges the fullness of my identity," Calamia said.
They received their first-place medal for the win but not the $5,000 prize money that’s supposed to come with it. Calamia reached out to the New York Road Runners (NYRR) that puts on the marathon to find out why.
“They told me that I was not eligible for the prize money because they added a new stipulation for the prize money following the registration period," Calamia said.
New York Road Runners sent KRON4 a statement saying this.
Cal was not eligible for the NYRR member division, non-binary prize money as they did not complete the six fully scored races required. The prize money and eligibility requirements for the non-binary category were published on our website at the same time as all the other categories, six months before the race.
New York Road Runners
In order to win the money, Calamia would have had to run six NYRR races in the year leading up to the New York City Marathon -- a rule that was posted to the marathon’s website three months after the non-binary runner registered.
“Would obviously require me to living in NYC," Calamia said. "I can’t fly out there six times to go do races, so I was really surprised by this being added and really really disappointed.”
Calamia says they tried to settle the matter with NYRR privately, but that didn’t work.
"The one thing they said is that they empathize with me expecting something and then something else happening, but they didn’t say hey it was our mistake we should communicated better," Calamia said.
They would of course like the $5,000 they ran for to come in the mail but is also hoping the New York Marathon changes the rules for future races.
"Making things fair so that trans and non-binary athletes can show up to spaces, we can be ourselves (and) have a fair share to compete,” Calamia said.
NYRR says there were six non-binary runners who met the finish time criteria, Calamia included. The $5,000 was awarded to the second-place runner in that category who did meet the necessary six-race requirement.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/VshwHgW
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