By David Ogilvie and NZPA
The money's in the pocket, but there still seems to be doubt about the final placing.
Former Wanganui athlete Michelle Burke has been financially compensated for what should have been a first place in Sunday's Auckland Marathon, but there has been no change in the finish order
on the race's website and organisers could not be contacted yesterday.
Burke ran the fastest time but did not win the women's event owing to the race being started early when she was in the toilet.
She got herself organised and joined the race, pushing through for second place in the event behind Sharon Fitzgerald, in fact recorded a time 49sec faster. The start gun was automatically fired about six minutes before the advertised start time of 6.30am.
Steven Brown, a spokesman for the organisers, said earlier that he had agreed compensation with Burke, who is on holiday in Brisbane and she was "more than happy". Brown would not disclose what the compensation was.
The women's marathon winner won a cash prize of $2500 while second place received $1500.
Compensation had also been reached with Wellington runner Sarah Christie who missed the half marathon race because of the muck-up.
Christie, a four-time winner of the event, instead competed in, and won, the 10km fun run which carried no prize money. First prize for the half marathon was $1500. Both women will get free entry next year.
Burke was running only her second marathon ? the first being the Rotorua Marathon in May in which she finished second in just over 3hrs. A former top rower, she is the partner of Glenn Tonks, son of national rowing coach Dick Tonks.
Burke left Wanganui some five years ago to train at Lake Karapiro. She has now given up rowing and is concentrating on long distance running.
The race was started early owing to a series of unfortunate circumstances. Race director Gary Upson started the countdown after being told by officials working for the company in charge of event timing that it was 6.25am. They had taken this time from the clock on the timing system's central server which was six minutes fast.
