"Pusha" learns when to push

Fast starter, never a winner. It’s taken a long time for Constantina Tomescu-Dita to throw off the tag that has dogged her since she lost a two-minute lead at the 2001 IAAF World Championships in Edmonton.

The Romanian was “only” 31 back then, a mere youngster with just a handful of marathons behind her. Over the next seven years she has run race after race in major championships and big cities across the world, amassing a total of 23 marathon starts. In London she is known as “the ever present”.

Biggest price of all

Until this morning, however, when she won the biggest prize of all at the ripe old age of 38, Dita had only managed one “big” marathon victory. That came in Chicago in 2004, while again and again she had taken the lead early in a race only to see it vanish in the later stages as her characteristically long stride shortens and her wide swinging arms tighten below her hunched shoulders.

In Edmonton she ended up tenth. Two years later in Paris she led by 32 seconds at 5km and dropped out. She led early in Chicago in 2003 and London in 2006, but finished second and seventh respectively. In the 2006 Chicago race she blazed out from the start, reached half way on World record pace, and held a lead of more than two minutes at 30km, only to trail in fifth after the wheels came off in the last 10km.

With such a record, Dita could be forgiven the anxious glances she cast over her shoulder as she strode through the Olympic Park towards the imposing colossus of Beijing’s National Stadium and the gold medal that had eluded her so often.

“I kept pushing and pushing and in the last few kilometres I was looking back because I wanted to be sure,” she said. “I didn’t know how far they were behind me. I have been caught so often that it was only in the last 200m of the race that I was certain I had the gold.”

Pre-planned tactics wonderfully pays off

The lesson, it seems, has finally sunk in. Today Dita drew on all her experience as she measured her race plan to beat a field packed with younger, faster runners. Eschewing the temptation of an early burst, she bided her time and made her move only after 20km.

It was a tactic she had discussed with coach and husband Valeriu Tomescu, a strategy of wait and see that wonderfully paid off.

“I talked with my coach before the race and he said if the pace is slow to push harder in the second half,” explained Dita. “If someone had come with me I would have shared the pace with them, but no one came.

“Maybe my experience helped me win the gold medal because I have a lot of years and a lot of races behind me. Sometimes I have gone from the beginning but this time I didn’t want to go early because I was worried about the other runners and the humidity.”

Valeriu, following the race on a bicycle, signalled for her to make her move shortly after 20km. When she did, the long-striding Romanian made it decisive. Perhaps the rest of the field thought she was bound to wilt in the sticky morning air. She’s done it before, after all. Perhaps they’d read all the warnings about Beijing smog and sweltering heat. But there was nothing wrong with the air quality today, as Dita later confirmed, and with overcast skies and the temperature in the early 20s this was relatively comfortable running.

Within 10km she had opened a lead of 57 seconds on the large chasing pack. But with runners such as Catherine Ndereba in the field, it seemed impossible that she could hold the gap. The 2004 silver medallist from Kenya is a past master at finishing strongly.

There were other threats too. China’s Zhou Chunxia, a 2:19:51 runner at her best, would surely be spurred by the home crowd to seek national glory; and the Ethiopian Berhane Adere, who caught Dita in Chicago a few years ago. Even the injury-hampered World record holder Paula Radcliffe might find the strength to haul her in.

But Dita stayed true to her nickname (Pusa, pronounced Pusha) and kept “pushing and pushing”, even upping her pace to threaten the Olympic record at one stage. After all, she had something to prove.

I wanted to prove them wrong

“Maybe when I went to the front they still thought I wouldn’t finish in the top three,” she said. “This made me push more and more because I wanted to prove them wrong. I have lost so many races like this that I wanted to be sure.”

She entered the stadium still some 200 metres ahead to be greeted by the roars of 50,000 loud and colourful early rising Chinese spectators. Even then she wasn’t sure, and only with half a lap to go did she allow herself to enjoy it.

“That’s when I knew,” she said. After leading by nearly a minute and half before the 35km mark, she crossed the line with just 22 seconds to spare, threw her arms wide in celebration, and set off on a victory lap.

Somewhere she found a Romania flag. After Lidia Simon’s silver in 2000, Dita had finally capped her nation’s great women’s marathon tradition.

Szabo sends congratulation message

Not that many in Romania would have known. The race was shown live on TV, of course, but back in Europe it started at 2.30am. In any case, according to Cristina Vlada of the Romanian federation, athletics is not as popular as it should be back home.

“They like football,” she says. “It’s a big problem. Even though we have many good marathon runners it isn’t very important for people back home.”

Perhaps that’s not entirely surprising. Dita, like all her country’s best marathon runners, lives and trains in Boulder, Colorado, and returns to Romania only for two or three weeks a year.

They travelled to Japan for five days to get acclimatised before coming to Beijing, and Dita will return to the US on Tuesday, leaving China early because her 13-year-old son, Rafael, needs to go back to school.

There was at least one Romanian watching, though, gripped by her countrywoman’s triumph. As Vlada chatted excitedly in the mixed zone she received a call on her mobile phone. It was from Gabriela Szabo, the Sydney Olympics 5000m champion.

“Tell Pusa I’m so happy for her,” she told Vlada. “I’m so excited for her.”

In her prime, Szabo was a master tactician on the track. At 38 Dita has, at last, got her tactics right to become the oldest Olympic marathon medallist ever. Finally, Pusa has learned when to push.

Matthew Brown for the IAAF