The 2013 Boston Marathon took place in Boston, Massachusetts on Monday April 15, 2013. The race marked the 117th edition of the mass-participation Boston Marathon. Organized by the Boston Athletic Association, it hosted the second of the World Marathon Majors to be held in 2013 with over 23,000 runners participating. Lelisa Desisa won the men's division with a time of 2:10:22, and Rita Jeptoo won the women's division with a time of 2:26:25. The BAA declared that the prize pool available contained more than 800,000 thousand dollars. The event was disrupted by a terrorist attack in which two consecutive explosions on the sidewalk, near the finish line, killed three spectators and injured 264 other people. The competition became suspended and many participants were unable to participate in the remainder of the competition. The attack received widespread international media attention.
Race description
After 26 seconds of silence to honor the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the marathon got underway with 52 wheelchair competitors leaving Hopkinton at 9:17 am EDT. At 9:30 am, 51 elite women left the starting line, followed by the elite men at 10 am. The remaining competitors were released in three waves over the next 40 minutes. In total, 23,336 competitors, from all 50 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, as well as 92 other countries, started the marathon. The temperature at start time began in the upper 40s °F range and climbed to 54 °F at the finish. Twenty-three-year-old Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia beat out two other runners in a three-way sprint to finish first in the men's division. It was his first win at Boston and just his second ever marathon. Desisa took home $150,000 and an olive wreath crown. His time of 2 hours, 10 minutes and 22 seconds was five seconds ahead of second-place finisher, Kenya's Micah Kogo. Gebre Gebremariam of Ethiopia was six seconds back in third place. American Jason Hartmann finished fourth for the second straight year. Halfway through the race, nine men, all from Kenya or Ethiopia, broke away from the main pack. With one mile to go, the lead group was down to three. At that point, Desisa made his move and pulled away from the other two. His lead widened as he sprinted to the finish line for the win. He became the fourth Ethiopian man to win the race, and the 24thEast African to win in the past 26 years. Rita Jeptoo of Kenya won the women's division with a time of 2 hours, 26 minutes and 25 seconds. It was her second win at Boston, the other coming seven years earlier in 2006, and her first major international win since taking two years off to have a baby. She finished 33 seconds ahead of Ethiopia's Meseret Hailu, who took second place. Kenya’s Sharon Cherop, the defending champion came through in third place, 36 seconds off the lead. American Shalane Flanagan was the first of the home athletes coming in fourth. Jeptoo became the third consecutive Kenyan winner. East Africans have won 17 of the past 19 races of the women's side. Hiroyuki Yamamoto of Japan won the men's wheelchair race, beating out nine-time champion Ernst Van Dyk of South Africa by one minute and 39 seconds. American Tatyana McFadden won the women's wheelchair race, besting Sandra Graf of Switzerland by one minute and 29 seconds.
Results
Because of the 6000 plus non finishing athletes of the 2013 Boston Marathon, the Boston Athletic Association approached a group of data analyst asking for a recommendation in a procedure for predicting the finish time of these athletes. Five statistical approachers were used in the analysis. The results showed that for most runners it did not matter which prediction method was used “for over 80% of the runners the differences among methods are less than 5 minutes and only 5% of the runners have differences larger than 20 minutes”. The results showed less accuracy for those who were further out from finishing, however from the data it would be expected that 90% of the runners prediction times would be less then four minutes from their true one.
Wheelchair
Bombing
At 2:50 pm EDT, race clock time 4:09.43, almost two hours after the winners had completed the race, two explosions occurred near the finish line. Three spectators were killed and 264 others injured. Among the injured, 17 were reported in critical condition, with at least 14 people requiring amputations. The race was halted 8 minutes after the explosions; runners east of Massachusetts Avenue were diverted into Boston Common, while those west of it were diverted to Kenmore Square. Over 5,000 participants who were unable to finish due to the race being halted were given medals. On May 16, the Boston Athletic Association gave participants who ran at least half the distance but were not able to complete the 2013 Marathon early entry into the 2014 Marathon, which was held on April 21, 2014. The BAA agreed to allow these 5,633 runners entry in August, compared to September for regular entrants. Qualifying standards were also waived for them.
