The top runners in the New York City Marathon’s nonbinary division won cash prizes Sunday, a first for a World Marathon Majors race.
New York City resident Jacob Caswell, 25, finished first in the category and 172nd overall, running the 26.2-mile race in 2:45:12 and receiving a cash prize of $5,000.
After Sunday’s race, which took place in unseasonably warm 70-degree weather, Caswell shared a photo on Instagram holding a bouquet of flowers with the caption, “This they themed their way to first place.”
This year’s NYC Marathon welcomed nearly 50,000 runners — 45 of them competing in the nonbinary division — who traveled through all five of the city’s boroughs to complete the route. The fastest finishers in the male and female categories had times of 2:08:41 and 2:23:23, respectively, and each won $25,000 in prize money.
Five nonbinary runners, including Caswell, were awarded cash prizes totaling $15,000, though, unlike the winners of the male and female divisions, their award money was not paid out by the World Marathon Majors’ governing body, according to the magazine Runners World. Instead, it reported, the nonprofit New York Road Runners awarded the monetary prizes to the top nonbinary finishers.
Last year, the NYC Marathon recognized its first nonbinary division winner, Zackary Harris, but the division did not receive a monetary prize. Harris came in second place in the nonbinary division this year, with a time of 3:09:41.
Of the six World Marathon Majors races, five of them — New York, Boston, Chicago, London and Berlin — have recently added a nonbinary category. Only the Tokyo Marathon has not.
