News27 Dec 2004


2004 – Road: Marathon Running and Race Walking Review

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Robert Korzeniowski of Poland wins the 50km Walk (© Getty Images)

The Marathon running and Race Walking highlights of 2004. Renowned statisticians A. Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava continue their end of season event category review - Part Four of eight instalments.

MEN – Road

Marathon
The general rule that Olympic years mean raised standards in world athletics disciplines applies to all events except the Marathon! This is not as paradoxical as it might appear at first glance.

Marathon runners compete seldom (one, two or at most three times per year) and for those that have a major championship in the summer as their big priority, the opportunities to also chase fast times in the spring and autumn become limited. The spring marathon might be considered as disturbing the preparation, and then there is too little time to recover after the championships in late August to run fast in October.

But isn’t there a major championship more or less every year? That might be correct in theory but it is very obvious that for most top runners it is only the Olympic lure that is strong enough to have a major impact on their priorities.

The effect on the statistics is conspicuous: Last year there were 81 sub-2:10 and 25 sub-2:08 runners, this year the corresponding numbers are 59 and 12. But it must of course be remembered that 2003 was by far the best year ever. 2004 is actually on par with 2002 (57 and 15) in the fight for 2nd place on the all-time list for “marathon years”.

The correlation between the season world list and the Olympic race is also almost non-existent: The three medallists from Athens – Stefano Baldini, Meb Keflezighi and Vanderlei de Lima – occupy positions 21, 55 and 48 statistically! Actually Baldini is the only runner in the Olympic top-10 that can be found in the top-40 timewise in 2004!

As for the major international marathons, the victories were as always spread between many different runners with Evans Rutto and Felix Limo, the only ones with one triumph in the spring and one in the autumn: Rutto won London and Chicago, while Limo was No 1 in Rotterdam and Berlin. Both of them recorded 2:06-times on both occasions.

Although Limo and Rutto were followed by four more Kenyans in the World list, the Kenyan statistical grip on the marathon lessened somewhat this year. In 2003 they had 8 out of the top-10 and 14 out of the top-20, this year they had “only” 7 in the top-10 and 12 at top-20.

But the real “national sport” of Kenya seems to be the Half Marathon. Including the slightly downhill courses, the 2004 World list had 6 runners at 59 minutes, 16 at 60 minutes and 62 at 61 minutes. Out of these Kenya supplied 4, 13 and 43!! Thus 71% (60 out of 84) of the fastest half marathon runners in the world in 2004 were Kenyans.

Road Running - IAAF WORLD RANKINGS - as of 13 Dec 2004  
Position - Name - DOB - Country - Points

1. Paul KIRUI  80 KEN 1314
2. Felix LIMO  80 KEN 1311
3. Stefano BALDINI  71 ITA 1295
4. Mebrathom KEFLEZIGHI  75 USA 1273
5. Sammy KORIR  71 KEN 1270
6. Daniel NJENGA  76 KEN 1267
7. Robert CHEBOROR  79 KEN 1258
8. William KIPSANG  77 KEN 1256


Race Walking

The race walkers are competing almost as sparingly as the marathon runners but in stark contrast the top walkers tend to face each other not just at the international championships but almost whenever competing. This year the 20km people got together not only in the Olympics in August but also at the World Cup in May, and many of them also met in Tijuana in March.

World 20km champion Jefferson Perez won the first two of those encounters but had to be content with a 4th place in the Olympics where Ivano Brugnetti - after a 3rd place in Tijuana and a 6th at the World Cup - rose to the occasion. Robert Korzeniowski displayed great consistency with 2nd places in Tijuana and the World Cup at 20km but then at the Olympics he chose to contest only the 50km.

But there are also similarities with the marathon as the correlation between statistics and the Olympic outcome is weak. The Olympic 20km medallists Brugnetti, Francisco Fernandez and Nathan Deakes are to be found a bit down in the lists as No 11, No 8 and No 7, while top-3 times belong to a Russian trio from a national race in February. Of this trio, Vladimir Stankin, Vladimir Parvatkin and Roman Rasskazov, only Parvatkin competed in Athens where he had a lowly finish.

Stankin’s 1:17:23 missed Pérez inaugural World 20km record set at the 2003 World Championships but in the 50km event the record (Korzeniowski’s 3:36:03 also from Paris 2003) was surpassed in Russia when Denis Nizjegorodov was half a minute faster in the national championships, though it will not be ratified as no EPO test was carried out. However, in Athens, Korzeniowski once more proved that he is the foremost in this event defeating the runner-up Nizjegorodov by over four minutes.
Korzeniowski also won the season long IAAF Race Walking Challenge, so retaining the inaugural title he took in 2003.

Overall, the discipline is ruled by a very small group of just four nations. In the Olympics it was POL, RUS, RUS, CHN, ESP, POL, POL, ESP, RUS and CHN for the top-10! China seems to be well on its way to becoming a race walking superpower. But for Mexico the trend is the opposite. This former superpower is conspicuously missing from the “Big 4” of 50km and that reflects in the current situation. A 12th place in the 20km lists and a 19th in the 50 km is everything that is Mexican in the statistical top-20 this year. So it was only logical that they had to be content with having their top Olympians finishing 18th (20km) and 15th (50km) in Athens.

Race Walking - IAAF WORLD RANKINGS - as of 13 Dec 2004  
Position - Name - DOB - Country - Points
1. Robert KORZENIOWSKI  68 POL 1371
2. Jefferson PÉREZ  74 ECU 1346
3. Ivano BRUGNETTI  76 ITA 1330
4. Chaohong YU  75 CHN 1329
5. Francisco Javier FERNÁNDEZ  77 ESP 1313
6. Nathan DEAKES  77 AUS 1302
7. Jesús Ángel GARCÍA  69 ESP 1289
8. Yucheng HAN  78 CHN 1284

 

WOMEN - Road

Marathon
Following on from a few very high standard seasons for the women’s Marathon there was a slight drop-off at the top in 2004. This time World record holder Paula Radcliffe (GBR) kept her first Marathon of the year to the Olympics which she famously was unable to finish. There was only one sub 2:20 performance, 2:19:41, achieved by Yoko Shibui (JPN) in Berlin in September.

The Olympic gold medal went to Mizuki Noguchi (JPN), who also ran her first Marathon of the season in Athens. Noguchi won in 2:26:20, just edging another favourite Catherine Ndereba (KEN) who finished in the silver medal position in 2:26:32.

Radcliffe went to win the New York Marathon in November to successfully bounce back from her Olympic disappointment. Her time of 2:23:10 was enough for third place in the World lists this season. Another top ranked Marathon runner during the past few years, Sun Yingjie (CHN), won her third successive Beijing Marathon, but was obviously tired following her win in the World Half Marathon Championships two weeks earlier. Her winning time was 2:24:11 which gives her the ninth place in the 2004 World list.

There was some quality lost, this season the tenth athlete in the world list was at 2:24:27, in 2003 this mark was 2:23:07, and 2:22:46 in 2002. Some more depth was lost as well, as there were 68 athletes under the 2:30 limit, with 70 in 2003 and 87 in 2002. Japan is the strongest country with 18 athletes in the world top 100. Russia is second with 16 and Kenya third at 13.

Road Running - IAAF WORLD RANKINGS - as of 13 Dec 2004  
Position - Name - DOB - Country - Points
1. Mizuki NOGUCHI  78 JPN 1317
2. Yingjie SUN  79 CHN 1291
3. Constantina DITA−TOMESCU  70 ROM 1289
4. Margaret OKAYO  76 KEN 1280
5. Hiromi OMINAMI  75 JPN 1279
6. Catherine NDEREBA  72 KEN 1276
7. Lydia CHEROMEI  77 KEN 1273
8. Elfenesh ALEMU  75 ETH 1266


Race Walking

After her disappointment in 2003, Olimpiada Ivanova (RUS) was back fighting for the gold medal again this summer. She went to Athens having won the Russian Championships with 1:26:54, which gave her second place on the World list behind 20-year-old Song Hongjuan (CHN), who entered her second successive major championship with the fastest time prior to the competition. In Paris 2003 the young Chinese was disqualified, but at the Olympics she did better and was in the leading group in Athens for a long time before finally fading to a 14th place finish.

But surprises were to come, Yelena Nikolayeva (RUS) and the 18-year-old Jiang Jing (CHN), who fought vigorously for the win in the World Cup in Naumburg with the Russian just staying in front in the end, were both dropped from Olympic medal contention early in the race, with Nikolayeva finally ending in 17th place with Jiang dropping to 32nd.

The surprise of the race was that two Greeks, to the delight of the home crowd, were able to cope with the pace until the very end of the Olympic 20km Race Walk. Although Athina Papayianni finally finished in 10th place, 22-year-old Athanasia Tsoumeleka was unbelievably strong in the end holding off Ivanova and took the Olympic gold medal in 1:29:12 - a personal best for the Greek in this pretty slow race. The Russian was second just four seconds behind in 1:29:16, and Jane Saville (AUS), who was disqualified in the Sydney Olympics in 2000 just before entering the stadium when leading the race, finally got her Olympic medal finishing in third place at 1:29:25.

Reigning Olympic champion Wang Liping was strongest of the Chinese in eighth place although she only started her training in February after giving birth to her first child in November 2003.
Italy’s Elisa Rigaudo, fifth in the Olympics won the season long IAAF Race Walking Challenge.

In 2004 there were 30 athletes under 1:30 with 26 in 2003 and only 15 in 2002. 2001 had 24 and the Olympic season of 2000, 27. China continued to be the strongest country in this event with 22 athletes in the world top-100, Russia had 18 for 2nd place and Spain, 8 in third.

Race Walking - IAAF WORLD RANKINGS - as of 13 Dec 2004  
Position - Name - DOB - Country - Points

1. Jane SAVILLE  74 AUS 1302
2. Elisa RIGAUDO  80 ITA 1294
3. María VASCO  75 ESP 1293
4. Athanasia TSOUMELEKA  82 GRE 1279
5. Hongjuan SONG  84 CHN 1275
6. Yelena NIKOLAYEVA  66 RUS 1274
7. Melanie SEEGER  77 GER 1269
8. Margarita TUROVA  80 BLR 1254

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