FanHouse Boston Marathon

The Boston Marathon -- a Patriot Day staple -- took place Monday and the results were, well, both shocking and encouraging for the U.S. Ethopia's Deriba Merga and Kenya's Salina Kosgei were the winners of the men's and women's races, respectively, but America managed to place third in each division as well, as Kara Goucher and Ryan Hall led the way for the U.S.

Perhaps third is not what most competitors strive for, but America's finish is the best in quite some time, considering that no American has won the event since 1985 when Lisa Larsen-Weidenbach took home the women's title.

This is Lidiya Grigoryeva crossing the finish line at the Boston Marathon yesterday. Grigoryeva is a Russian, and to honor her, the Marathon played the Russian national anthem. Except that it was the wrong national anthem. And it's a mistake Marathon officials have made before:

Russians in Boston watching the race - and others watching on television - were horrified to hear the wrong anthem for the second time since another Russian woman won in 2003....

Boston Athletics Association officials didn't realize they had played the national anthem used only between 1996-2000.

Russia briefly got rid of the Soviet-era national anthem (a tune probably best known to Americans as the song the pro wrestler Nikolai Volkoff sang before matches), but then brought back the same melody with different lyrics. Apparently even seven years later, the folks at the Boston Marathon don't have the new CD. Men's winner Robert Cheruiyot got the right anthem played for him, although if Marathon organizers didn't have the Kenyan anthem ready, they'd be hopeless.

The weather in the Northeast was so bad this weekend that Boston Marathon officials gave serious thought to canceling today's race entirely, but the race did begin as scheduled this morning.

A few miles in, New York Marathon champion Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia is leading the women's race. Defending champion Ernst Van Dyk is leading the men's wheelchair division and Wakako Tsuchida is leading the women's wheelchair division. The male elite runners began just minutes ago.

Many runners were clearly affected by the weather: 2,449 of the approximately 25,000 who registered did not show up for the race.