AIMS News
A way forward Despite the flurry of recordbreaking times distance running as a participatory sport remains diminished by mass events mistakenly being seen as a ‘super-spreader’ mechanism. Three months ago distance running events seemed to be starting up again after a lengthy period in which the sport had slowly ground to a halt. The first wave of coronavirus infections had receded and race organisers started planning to restart mass races on a reduced scale. The events that made headlines were small elite-only affairs with a field
Picture: Getty
counted in the tens rather than thousands. But they were eyecatching: the half marathon in Prague gave us a new women-only world record; London Marathon staged a dramatic finish in which Eliud Kipchoge did not feature. But these were multi-lap courses more reminiscent of stadium athletics than popular marathons – except that spectators had to be actively discouraged from coming to watch. That same weekend the Košice Peace Marathon had to slash numbers from the 5000 planned to 200 to satisfy local health concerns; the following week both the Riga and Bucharest marathons were cancelled at the last moment and a similar fate befell the Belgrade Marathon a week later, followed by Lausanne’s ‘covidcompatible’ race for 1000 runners succumbing to a resurgence of the virus. The trend continued into November with Athens Marathon The Authentic being cancelled less than a week before it was due to be run, in a
Istanbul Marathon
scaled-down anti-covid form, as Greece went into a second lockdown. There were some races that did go ahead with thousands of runners, but not many of them: that same weekend in November Istanbul Marathon, and several weeks before it the Half Marathon, was notable for its 4000-strong field. The organisers’ radical anti-covid precautions were to move the start and finish area to a huge open space
to allow safe distancing between runners before and after the race. To achieve this the course had to be completely changed which involved making a double crossing of the Bosphorus Bridge. The mass field was separated from the elite race with groups of four runners starting every five seconds. Elite-only races with small fields but big budgets and TV coverage continued to be the only realistic
The worst of times, but the best of timings In the most difficult year in living memory for the sport of distance running Valencia hosted four World records: Rhonex Kipruto from Kenya in 10km on the road; Letesenbet Gidey from Ethiopia (5000m) and Joshua Cheptegei from Uganda (10000m) on the track; and Kiwibott Kandie from Kenya in the Half Marathon. Kandie, with his sensational 57:32 timing, was followed home by the Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo (57:36) and Kenyans Rhonex Kipruto (57:48) and Alexander Mutiso (57:59) – all four of them beating the previous record of 58:01. Mutiso ran sub 58 yet didn’t even make the podium. Runners benefited from no apparent wind in the first half of the course but a tailwind over the last few kilometres. The effects were seen in the 15-20km split (13:33) and the final 1097.5m being run in 2:49. In the women’s race Genzebe Dibaba tackled the half-marathon
distance for the first time and won with an impressive (1:05:18). Sheila Chepkirui and Senbere Teferi completed the podium with sub-66 minute performances. The Half Marathon was followed by the Valencia Trinidad Alfonso EDP Marathon in which both men (2:03:00) and women (2:17:16) set new course records. The 2:03 winning time made Valencia the third fastest city in the World, behind Berlin and London – but the most impressive aspect of the race was the huge number of personal bests achieved in this 40th anniversary edition of the Marathon. Statistically: 17 runners ran under 2:08, 11 under 2:06 and 4 under 2:04; 61 runners achieved the Olympic qualification time; 77 ran personal best times in the Marathon (and 23 in the Half Marathon), and 11 set new national records. From the social and strategic points of view in the lead up to the race decision-making was
difficult. The Covid pandemic overshadowed everything. There were doubts over being able to make it happen until the last minute. Within that context, the organising team made up by the Correcaminos club, Valencia Municipality and the Foundation Trinidad Alfonso drew strength from last year’s progress and from the recent award of a Platinum label from World Athletics. The athletes, with very restricted opportunities for Olympic qualification, and the enormous number of running
enthusiasts in our city deserved our full commitment to make the seemingly impossible possible. Circumstances allowed this to happen, along with the trust and forbearance shown by the 30,000 runners registered at the time when the mass race was cancelled. They were asked to choose between reimbursement or transfer of their registration to 2021 and more than two thirds of them chose to run Valencia in 2021.
Distance Running | 2021 Edition 1
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