Challenge of Sexes Finds Agreement

Lyubov Denisova still loves L.A.

Really.

The Russian marathoner, who set a women’s course record in last year’s Los Angeles Marathon but left the Southland in a huff after losing out on bonus money, has been living happily near Griffith Park for the last month while training for Sunday’s 21st annual race.

The smallish Denisova stood outside the entrance to the park’s tot-sized railroad after a workout last week and professed no hard feelings toward a race she also won in 2002.

“I like it here a lot,” a smiling Denisova said through an interpreter.

Denisova was feeling even better on Friday when organizers announced a differential of 16 minutes 46 seconds for the Banco Popular Challenge, which gives the women that much of a head start on the men. The first runner, male or female, to cross the finish line wins a $100,000 challenge bonus in addition to $35,000 and a new car for winning their division.

Denisova, 34, is attempting to become the first three-time winner of the L.A. Marathon, which last year drew more than 25,000 runners, according to race officials.

Denisova almost was not among the participants.

She nearly withdrew a few days before the marathon when organizers announced a “challenge” differential of 15:50. The time was 4:40 less than in 2004, the inaugural year of the challenge, when Tatyana Pozdnyakova of Ukraine won by a margin of 3:54 and got a $50,000 bonus.

Despite what she viewed as a nearly insurmountable time, Denisova decided to run and won the women’s race in a course-record 2:26:11. However, Kenya’s Ben Maiyo and Mark Saina passed her in the 25th mile. Saina went on to win the men’s race, and the $75,000 challenge bonus, by finishing in 2:09:35, 10 seconds off the men’s course record.

Afterward, Denisova said she would not return to L.A. if the differential were calculated the same way.

So Friday’s announcement relieved Denisova, who is being paid an appearance fee and got exactly what she hoped for in the reconfigured differential: 16 minutes 46 seconds is the exact time between the men’s and women’s course records.

“Last year, not good,” she said in English after a news conference on the track at Manual Arts High. “This year, I like it.”

So does Saina, one of 17 Kenyans in the 45-man elite field who will be chasing a group of 11 women’s runners that includes Denisova, Ethiopia’s Gete Wami, Mexico’s Madai Perez, Russia’s Lidiya Grigoryeva and Ukraine’s Pozdnyakova, a two-time L.A. marathon winner.

“This is the best way because both of us, ladies and men, we have to go for our course record to win,” Saina said. “I could see a situation where you have both coming to the finish line at the same time.”

Denisova intends to break the tape first and add another achievement to her resume.

Denisova started running competitively when she was 15. She tried the 800-, 1,500- and 3,000-meter events but found that longer distances suited her. She was 21 when she ran her first marathon, finishing in 2 hours 42 minutes.

“It was very easy until the last two kilometers,” she said. “The last two were very hard.”

Denisova won the 2001 Long Beach Marathon and won the L.A. Marathon the next year in 2:28:49. She has won three other marathons and has finished second in the Boston and New York marathons.

However, she missed collecting the largest check in last year’s L.A. Marathon.

After Pozdnyakova’s 2004 victory in the challenge, Denisova said she trained for the 2005 race anticipating a 17- or 18-minute differential.

But organizers veered from the 2004 formula, which was based on the time difference between the men’s and women’s winners in previous L.A. marathons. Instead, a statistician applied various theories to fields similar to the 2005 field and calculated a differential of 15:50.

“I felt a little in shock,” Denisova recalled.

Denisova said this year she has shifted her focus away from the challenge portion of the L.A Marathon and concentrated on lowering her course record.

She trained in Albuquerque for a month before coming to Los Angeles in February with her husband, Maxim, who also is her coach. The couple has a 6-year-old daughter, Anastasia, who is staying with relatives in Russia.

Denisova hopes to return to Russia with another L.A. Marathon victory and her first challenge bonus.

“This year I will be first if everything goes right,” she said. “This year I will just go out and run.”