The sprint to solve C structure

[GoodTaste]

As a headline, I feel that "Sprint to solve C structure" a bit better than "The sprint to solve C structure." That is, "the" is omittable there. The betterness appears to come from highlighting the alliteration "Sprint to solve."

What do you native English speakers feel? Is simply "Sprint to solve" sounding terser to you too?

===================
NEWS FEATURE 15 MAY 2020
The sprint to solve coronavirus protein structures — and disarm them with drugs
Stopping the pandemic could rely on breakneck efforts to visualize SARS-CoV-2 proteins and use them to design drugs and vaccines.
Megan Scudellari

Source: Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01444-z

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

They're both fine with me.

Without "The," some will read it as a command: You must sprint . . . .

But it's a headline. Concise is king. People who want to know more will read the article.

 

[jutfrank]

I think it works much better with The. In fact, I'd say the article is needed.

 

[GoodTaste]

I think it works much better with The. In fact, I'd say the article is needed.

Why?

 

[Rover_KE]

It eliminates the ambiguity that Charlie mentioned in post #2.

 

[emsr2d2]

It's always helpful, when you have a word at the start of a sentence that could be a noun or a verb, to add the article before the noun so it doesn't sound like an imperative.

 

[Tdol]

This is a scientific journal. A newspaper might omit the article, but they use huge fonts for headlines and need to think about space.

 

[jutfrank]

Why?

To make reference to the noun phrase. Grammatically, the noun phrase needs a determiner.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It eliminates the ambiguity that Charlie mentioned in post #2.

It does, indeed!

How serious a problem it creates might be a matter of perspective. It certainly wants correction, but our local paper makes so many goofy headline errors that, from where I'm sitting, that one seems fairly benign.

For instance, they think that infamous means very famous. But this one is hard to top:

 

[jutfrank]

For instance, they think that infamous means very famous.

Reminds me of a scene from one of my favourite films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIGtHhAfe8w

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Reminds me of a scene from one of my favourite films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIGtHhAfe8w

Love Three Amigos! And it's been years.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

And speaking of interesting Kennebec Journal headlines, I had to share one from this morning:

Two hurt after tire pops off motorcycle
Both riders, of Old Town, taken to separate hospitals​

For pioneering work in remote surgery?