General view from 2004 Cologne Marathon (© Ford Köln Marathon)
There are no official World records for junior runners for races beyond 10,000m on the track, and there are none on the road. There are strong arguments of course that for health reasons young bodies should not be put through the stresses of such long distances at all. However, at a statistical level alone, it cannot go without note that the unofficial world’s fastest ever marathon performance by a junior aged runner has been set twice in the past seven months.
The most recent occurrence was at the Karstadt Ruhr Marathon on 17 April, which started in Oberhausen, when Kenyan Moses Masai, 18 (DOB 01/06/86), reached the finish line in Essen, Germany, in 2:10:13, some 25 seconds faster than the previous best junior time. Masai was the overall winner - a rare circumstance for a junior in an event with senior competitors - but also he was slightly misdirected at the finish.
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At a different German venue, Cologne, on 12 September 2004, Ethiopian Abiyote Guta (with a reported date of birth of 01 January 1985) ran 2:10:38.
Prior to 2004, the fastest junior marathon was run by China’s Li Zhuhong, a 2:10:46 at the 2001 Beijing Marathon, eight days before he turned 18. The earliest world-class performances by junior runners were a pair of 2:12:49s by Ethiopians Negash Dube at the 1987 Beijing Marathon and Tesfaye Dadi at the 1988 Berlin Marathon.
Last year at the Memorial Van Damme in Brussels, Masai showed his precocious speed running 27:07.29 in the 10,000 metres. That would have been a World Junior record had not Boniface Kiprop finished 3.29 seconds ahead of him in that same race.
Masai will have the opportunity to lower the unofficial marathon junior world best later in 2005, and considering that a little more than six months past his 20th birthday, Kenyan Mike Rotich won the 2003 Paris Marathon in a blazing 2:06:33, there is every indication that for Masai and other upcoming young marathoners there’s plenty of room for improvement.
Marty Post for the IAAF
