Catherine Ndereba of Kenya wins the 2007 World Marathon title in Osaka (© Bongarts/Getty Images)
MonteCarloThe respected track and field statisticians, A. Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava continue their end of season review, with the 2007 competitive highlights of the road events, the Road Running and Race Walks – Part Five of eight.
MEN - Road
Road Running
The Half Marathon is in a stage of rapid progress and the 2007 World Championships held in Udine in mid-October was something special as it became the beginning of a new era, the era of "Sub-60 minutes is not so special anymore". This as all the first seven runners – representing five different nations – finished between 58:59 and 59:33.
To this it should be added that 2007 had three more races – Den Haag, Ras Al-Khaimah and Berlin – that saw sub-59:00 winning times and six more races produced performances below one hour. So those kinds of times are quickly becoming commonplace and the trend of improvement continuous deeper down in the World list where 2007 was the first year ever when it took sub-61:00 to get into the top-50.
As with all the other long distances it is runners from East Africa in general and Kenya specifically that push this progression process: 28 of the top-50 in 2007 are Kenyans and only 9 are not representing an East African nation. But also the American continent did manage to get their first sub-60 runners this year in Brazil's Marilson dos Santos (in Udine) and USA's Ryan Hall (in Houston).
However, just as in 10,000m on the track Europe is almost nowhere to be seen in the half marathon lists. The top European is in 55th place and he is also a runner that previously represented an African nation (Morocko).
At the very top the World record was lowered twice by Kenyan Samuel Wanjiru, though no EPO test on the first occasion meant he will only be credited with one record, his 58:33 in Den Haag in March – a race he won by some 1½ minute. But judging from what happened with the general standards in 2007 those 58:33 probably won't survive even 2008 as the World record.
In the Marathon, five and a half years after making his first serious attempt at conquering the classic distance when doing 2:06 in London Haile Gebrselassie finally put everything together. In a masterpiece of even-paced running in Berlin on 30 September the Ethiopian legend lowered Paul Tergat's World record set in the same event four years ago by almost half a minute to 2:04:26.
Otherwise it was almost exclusively Kenyan runners that provided all the fast marathon times once more: 20 of the top-30 marks on the World list belong to Kenyan runners. And finally – for the first time since Douglas Wakiihuri won the World title twenty years ago – Kenya also had the winner of the global championship race. The gold medallist Luke Kibet is, however, only the 48th Kenyan statistically this year with his 2:10 from the Vienna Marathon in April.
Kenyans also dominated the "Marathon Majors" circuit claiming victories in Boston (Robert Cheruiyot), London (Martin Lel), Chicago (Patrick Ivuti) and New York (Martin Lel) and only missing out in Berlin to Haile's World record, but of course the 2nd place there went to a Kenyan (Abel Kirui).
And there were Kenyan winners in sub-2:09 also in Amsterdam, Fukuoka (the debut of half marathon record runner Samuel Wanjiru), Hamburg, Eindhoven, Frankfurt, Beijing, Seoul, Rotterdam....
But the Kenyans would be wise not to underestimate the American Ryan Hall in the future. Hall – still not turned 23 – made his marathon debut in London finishing 7th in 2:08 and in the US Olympic Trials in early November in New York he just seemed to play with the opposition winning in 2:09, the same time run by the winner of the open NYCM race the next day on a course regarded as "faster".
Half Marathon - 2007 World Lists
Marathon - 2007 World Lists
20 km Race Walk
Ecuador's Jefferson Perez added another World gold medal to his collection after being the best at handling the humid heat in Osaka. For the silver medal there was some last second excitement as Tunisia's Hatem Ghoula appearing to savour the moment was caught unaware at the line by the finishing burst of experienced Francisco Javier Fernandez of Spain.
Due to the weather conditions in Osaka the times were relatively mediocre and only one of the 32 finishers managed to establish even a personal yearly best. Instead it was the individual IAAF Challenge events and the European Cup that provided the bulk of top times this year. Interestingly the two top-times – where the 1:17:16 even constituted a new World record – were achieved by a walker not even attempting to get the World title in Osaka.
Russia's 22-years old Vladimir Kanyakin (previously both World Youth and World Junior champion) instead opted for the 50 km distance there. Whether that was the right choice could be questioned in hindsight as he after being up with the leaders for some 35 kilometres couldn't finish that race.
At the 20km it instead was Mexico's Eder Sánchez and Italy's Giorgio Rubino – both even one year younger than Kanaykin – that made the establishment aware of the emergence of a new generation of world class walkers. Sánchez taking 4th and Rubino 5th place behind the approximately ten years older medallist trio.
Osaka once more proved that in the road events the statistical year lists are very bad as tools for forcasting the outcome of the championship events: The top-8 finishers in Osaka are to be found in positions No 31, 2, 24, 14, 33, 17, 21 and 22 respectively on the 2007 World list. And reversely the top-8 statistically ended up dns, 2, dnf, 9, dns, 13, dns and 29 in Osaka.
So in the walking events one should never read too much into an analysis of trends based upon plain statistics like year lists.
20km Race Walk - 2007 World Lists
50km Race Walk
After the long Korzeniowski era the 50km event has become much more open with a group of fairly even-matched athletes at the top. In Helsinki 2005 (Worlds) the medallists were Sergey Kirdyapkin, Aleksey Voyevodin and Alex Schwazer, in Gothenburg 2006 (Europeans) Yohan Diniz, Jesus Angel Garcia and Yuriy Andronov and this year in Osaka the medals were fought out between Nathan Deakes, Yohan Diniz and Alex Schwazer.
Australian Deakes – since December last year the World record holder – finally triumphed after finishing between 3rd and 8th in five previous global championship races. The times for the leading walkers (top-4 sub-3:47) must be considered highly remarkable taking the Osaka humidity into consideration. Luckily the temperature was not as scorching as in the 20K where it was 32 degrees at the start, here they began in "merely" 25 degrees.
For the nation with the greatest depth in the event – Russia – these World Championships must have been a major disappointment as the top-2 from Helsinki Kirdyapkin and Voyevodin as well as the European Cup champion of 2007 Vladimir Kanaykin all failed to finish leaving Denis Nizhegorodov in 4th place the only Russian in the final results.
Given the expected gruelling weather conditions the reluctance to contest both distance was very strong, but Norway's Erik Tysse did dare to double and was remarkably successful. Having a 13th place in the 20km two years ago as his best previous performance in a global championship Tysse was 8th in the 20K and then just six days later 5th in the 50km!
50km Race Walk - 2007 World Lists
WOMEN - Road
Road Running
33-year-old Lornah Kiplagat (NED) due to injury didn’t race a lot during the 2007 season but still accomplished much. In February she won the San Juan 10km road race in 31:05 handing Meseret Defar (ETH) her own loss of the season in any race. She then went on to win the World Cross Country Championships in Mombasa and capped her season with a World record breaking win at the World Road Running Championships in Udine. Her 66:25 clocking bettered the earlier mark 66:44 by Elana Meyer (RSA) from 1999 and she also broke her own 20km WR passing the distance in 62:57 in Udine. Behind Kiplagat 25-year-old Kenyan Mary Keitany ran the race of her life and took the silver medal in 66:48. Keitany had only run her first sub 70-minute race the previous year in April 2006.
In the women’s Marathon the road was open to the World Championships gold because Paula Radcliffe (GBR) had given birth to her first child, daughter Isla, in January and could not make it to Osaka.
29-year-old Chinese Zhou Chunxiu, who has been a part of top marathon running ever since her debut in 2003, was the winner of the London marathon in April with a world leading 2:20:38 and established herself as one of the favourites in Osaka. But 35-year-old Catherine Ndereba (KEN), who had concentrated only on the Osaka World Championships, grabbed gold there sprinting away from Zhou in the final couple of kilometres. By that victory Ndereba added a second World title to the 2003 gold and has silver from 2005 World Champs and 2004 Olympics as well to complete an impressive major championships history for the Kenyan.
Zhou took the silver losing to Ndereba by only eight seconds and bettered her fifth place finish from Helsinki 2005. These two will naturally be among the favourites at the Olympics and they will be joined by Mizuki Noguchi (JPN) and Paula Radcliffe who both posted impressive times in November.
Radcliffe made a victorious return in New York winning a tight race against Gete Wami (ETH) in 2:23:09 with the Ethiopian timed 2:23:32 in her third marathon of the year following 2:21:45 second place finish in London and 2:23:17 win in Berlin to cap a high standard marathon season for her.
Reigning Olympic champion Noguchi returned to marathon competition with a fast 2:21:37 win in Tokyo. It was her first marathon for more than two years since she set the Asian record 2:19:12 in Berlin in September 2005 and continued her successful 2007 season which also included three fast half marathons in Japan: 68:30, 68:54 and 68:22.
Japan, no surprisingly, is the country with the most depth in the event with 17 athletes on the world top 100 list. Kenya is second with 15 and China, Ethiopia and Russia are tied for third place with ten.
Half Marathon - 2007 World Lists
Marathon - 2007 World Lists
20km Race Walk
It was another fine season for Russian race walkers. With the 26-year-old Belarussian Ryta Turava, who had reigned the event big time in 2006, not competing since late June, the World Championships was a playground for a Russian national competition.
The 2006 European Championships silver medallist behind Turava, Olga Kaniskina, capped a fine season with a win in Osaka and then a world leading 1:26:47 clocking at the IAAF Challenge Final in Saransk in September. 20-year-old Tatyana Shemyakina took the silver and the perfect competition for Russians was only ruined by Tatyana Sibileva who faded to 9th place. The reigning World Champion Olimpiada Ivanova was also in the Osaka race, but could not finish her only start of the season. 31-year-old Spaniard Maria Vasco took the bronze, another third place finish in addition to the 2000 Olympics bronze.
Russia is the strongest country in the event with 23 athletes on the world top 100 list. China is second with 16 and Belarus and Japan tied for third place with six each.
20km Race Walk - 2007 World Lists
IAAF
