"Faced with a blast of criticism from all over the country, Nike issued a statement Wednesday saying that it "recognizes Arien O'Connell as a winner." Did you catch that? It says a winner - not the winner. Even though she ran 11 minutes faster than the "elite" woman who was given first place, O'Connell's career-best finish will exist in an odd parallel universe where, no matter how fast you run, you can't win the race unless you're among a special few." - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

looks like Nike decided to give her her due afterall, sort of... they still didn't call her "the" winner. They are calling her "a" winner. Spineless weak Nike if you ask me. - Thomas Hawk

This has been a textbook example of how even a well-heeled, media savvy company can totally screw the pooch. Could it have been handled more miserably? I don't think so. They just keep digging a deeper hole. - Chris Baskind

If New Balance were smart they'd sign her up for an endorsement deal pronto. Nike looks like mud in all this. They could have handled this so much better. - Thomas Hawk

Nike has always sucked, as a company. Its complete lack of corporate ethics is never a surprise. - Bob M. Montgomery from twhirl

Throughout this whole thing, I'm just wondering how a group of people who got a 20 min. head start didn't notice a person not in their group passing them by. - Admiral Anika

New Balance could do Apple/PC like adds with her wearing NB shoes vs. Nike with the ending tagline being, "real winners wear New Balance." They could do it smart and with humor and get good traction off of Nike's total blunder. Nike should declare her "the" winner and maybe give her $50,000 and give number 2 $25,000 to make up for their mishandling of the situation and give the charity another $25,000 to boot. It would be a small price to pay. - Thomas Hawk

@Hawk: You're right. NB or someone should sign her, then do a Joe the Athlete campaign around her. - Chris Baskind

Who is Nike's PR agency anyways and why aren't they handling this better? - Thomas Hawk

That's bullshit. You run the fastest... you win. The fastest runner doesn't get a consolation prize. Clearly nike is unamerican, and a bunch of terrorists. - Joshua Schnell

Major opportunity for NB, agreed. Enjoyed the post and comments on Paul Isakson's blog some months ago re Nike's most recent campaign vs. NB's : http://tinyurl.com/2vrqjm . This event would fit in to that discussion nicely (Nike's "slickness" vs. NB's "real" runner). - Marko Bon