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In der achten Ausgabe des IAAF Jahresrückblickes, blicken A. Lennart

Julin und Mirko Jalava auf die Highlights im Laufjahr 2003 zurück.

The Marathon running and Race Walking highlights of 2003. Renowned

statisticians A. Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava continue their end of season

review - Part Four of eight instalments.

MEN - Marathon and Race Walking

Marathon The marathon revolution of recent years showed no sign of coming to

an end in 2003 – rather the opposite. At the very top 2003 compared more

than favourably with the whole previous history of the event. The top-10

runners of 2003 averaged 2:06:12 while the top-10 of all-time before 2003

averaged 2:06:16!!

The driving force in this ongoing process continued to be Kenya and its

seemingly endless supply of new marathon talent. The main Kenyan coups this

year were two new bests:

* Evans Rutto with 2:05:50 in Chicago making the fastest ever marathon

début! * Paul Tergat with 2:04:55 in Berlin making the fastest ever

marathon!

However, one might say that our own - and athletic history’s -

traditional almost obsessive fascination with the ’record’ concept

was especially unfair to one athlete this year, Kenyas Sammy Korir!

While Paul Tergat has been celebrated in every possible way for his

fantastic new marathon time (which will become the first official World record

for the event on 1 January 2004), almost nothing has been said or written about

Sammy Korir although he finished just one single second behind Tergat in the

race! One single second in a total of almost 7,500 seconds!

Den vollen Artikel auf IAAF.org- hier klicken