Eliud Kipchoge is the best marathoner ever.
Two years ago he attacked the 2-hour marathon barrier and came tantalising close with a time of 2:00:25. In my article "the barrier is still intact" I wrote:
In some sense it is even better than a sub-2 time. Had Kipchoge broken the barrier we could have waved that away saying he got excessive help from the staging of the event. Having come close and failed lends to his effort a human dimension.
If somebody could break that mythical barrier that person could only be Kipchoge. He possesses the basic speed that could allow him to break the marathon world record under “normal” conditions.
A year later he did just that, improving the world record (under regular conditions) to what looked like an "impossible" time of 2:01:39. But that was not enough. he had to break that damned 2-hr barrier. And on October 12th he did just that, with 1:59.41.
The time cannot be homologated as a world record. This is due to the fact that the pace was set by a car-mounted laser beam and that accompanying pacemakers were present in rotation throughout the race. In fact 41 among the most famous middle-long distance runners were present. Their function was not of setting the pace (this was far better done by the laser beam) but to offer a shield to Kipchoge and minimise air resistance for him. Among them one finds Olympic, World and Continental champions. But most prominent are the Kalenjin runners, the ones of Kipchoge's tribe. A small tribe numbering just 5 million individuals produces some of the finest runners in the world. Just look at the photo below. All of them are Kalenjin. (Lagat is a Nandi, which is sub-tribe of the Kalenjin).
Kipchoge's average speed was 21.18 km/hr, or 2:50 min per km. Just to get an idea of the pace, here are the official splits
5km 00:14:10
10km 00:28:20
15km 00:42:34
20km 00:56:47
25km 01:10:59
30km 01:25:11
35km 01:39:23
40km 01:59:40
And he passed at half-point with 11 seconds in advance over the projected 2-hr time.
There were frequent references to the 4-min mile barrier, even by Kipchoge himself. This is quite acceptable, all the more so since Kipchoge pointed out that once the 4-min barrier was broken other runners soon followed, saying that he is expecting something similar for the marathon. Unfortunately journalists motivating by sensationalism started assimilating Kipchoge's feat to Armstrong setting foot upon the moon, or even worse, comparing the sub-2 performance to Bolt's 9.58 100 m record. What barrier did Bolt break? The 10 s barrier was broken by B. Hayes in Tokyo, 1964, with 9.9 s manual time. (And the stupid organisers decided to use the electronic time rounding his time to 10.0, in blatant violation of the rules applicable at the time). The electronic timing 10 s barrier was broken four years later by J. Hines in Mexico with 9.95 s. So, any reference to Bolt sounds really absurd and can potentially diminish the value of Kipchoge's feat.
PS When it rains, it pours. Kipchoge broke the 2 hr barrier on October 12th. And then on the 13th Brigid Kosgei broke the women's marathon record with 2:14.04, erasing Radcliffe's long standing 2:15:25. Kosgei has no medals from global championships but has won several prestigious marathons in her career, with a previous personal best of 2:18.20. In Chicago she passed at mid race in 1:06.59 and she managed to keep that pace till the end, smashing the world record. (It would have been a men's world record in 1964). And a funny fact. At the very last moment Kosgei decided to run with the same shoe model Kipchoge used for his attempt (a model from Nike, since both runners belong to the Nike team). The shoe is supposed to improve running economy by at least four percent. The choice paid out for both Kosgei and Kipchoge. (And just in case you were wondering: Kosgei is also Kalenjin).
Two years ago he attacked the 2-hour marathon barrier and came tantalising close with a time of 2:00:25. In my article "the barrier is still intact" I wrote:
In some sense it is even better than a sub-2 time. Had Kipchoge broken the barrier we could have waved that away saying he got excessive help from the staging of the event. Having come close and failed lends to his effort a human dimension.
If somebody could break that mythical barrier that person could only be Kipchoge. He possesses the basic speed that could allow him to break the marathon world record under “normal” conditions.
A year later he did just that, improving the world record (under regular conditions) to what looked like an "impossible" time of 2:01:39. But that was not enough. he had to break that damned 2-hr barrier. And on October 12th he did just that, with 1:59.41.
The time cannot be homologated as a world record. This is due to the fact that the pace was set by a car-mounted laser beam and that accompanying pacemakers were present in rotation throughout the race. In fact 41 among the most famous middle-long distance runners were present. Their function was not of setting the pace (this was far better done by the laser beam) but to offer a shield to Kipchoge and minimise air resistance for him. Among them one finds Olympic, World and Continental champions. But most prominent are the Kalenjin runners, the ones of Kipchoge's tribe. A small tribe numbering just 5 million individuals produces some of the finest runners in the world. Just look at the photo below. All of them are Kalenjin. (Lagat is a Nandi, which is sub-tribe of the Kalenjin).
Kipchoge's average speed was 21.18 km/hr, or 2:50 min per km. Just to get an idea of the pace, here are the official splits
5km 00:14:10
10km 00:28:20
15km 00:42:34
20km 00:56:47
25km 01:10:59
30km 01:25:11
35km 01:39:23
40km 01:59:40
And he passed at half-point with 11 seconds in advance over the projected 2-hr time.
There were frequent references to the 4-min mile barrier, even by Kipchoge himself. This is quite acceptable, all the more so since Kipchoge pointed out that once the 4-min barrier was broken other runners soon followed, saying that he is expecting something similar for the marathon. Unfortunately journalists motivating by sensationalism started assimilating Kipchoge's feat to Armstrong setting foot upon the moon, or even worse, comparing the sub-2 performance to Bolt's 9.58 100 m record. What barrier did Bolt break? The 10 s barrier was broken by B. Hayes in Tokyo, 1964, with 9.9 s manual time. (And the stupid organisers decided to use the electronic time rounding his time to 10.0, in blatant violation of the rules applicable at the time). The electronic timing 10 s barrier was broken four years later by J. Hines in Mexico with 9.95 s. So, any reference to Bolt sounds really absurd and can potentially diminish the value of Kipchoge's feat.
PS When it rains, it pours. Kipchoge broke the 2 hr barrier on October 12th. And then on the 13th Brigid Kosgei broke the women's marathon record with 2:14.04, erasing Radcliffe's long standing 2:15:25. Kosgei has no medals from global championships but has won several prestigious marathons in her career, with a previous personal best of 2:18.20. In Chicago she passed at mid race in 1:06.59 and she managed to keep that pace till the end, smashing the world record. (It would have been a men's world record in 1964). And a funny fact. At the very last moment Kosgei decided to run with the same shoe model Kipchoge used for his attempt (a model from Nike, since both runners belong to the Nike team). The shoe is supposed to improve running economy by at least four percent. The choice paid out for both Kosgei and Kipchoge. (And just in case you were wondering: Kosgei is also Kalenjin).
No comments:
Post a Comment