The music of a marathon is a powerful strain, one of those tunes of glory. It asks us to forsake pleasures, to discipline the body, to find courage, to renew faith, and to become one’s own person, utterly and completely. – George Sheehan
Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa, erstwhile 800m specialist, obliterated the women’s marathon world record on Sunday as she won the Berlin Marathon, completing the course in 2:11:53 and lopping more than two minutes off the previous best.
It marked her second consecutive Berlin Marathon title. Her time is two minutes and 11 seconds faster than Brigid Kosgei’s previous world record set at the 2019 Chicago Marathon. The new mark is still subject to the usual ratification procedure, according to World Athletics.
A relative newcomer to the distance, it was only Assefa’s third ever competitive marathon after she made the switch from middle-distance running.
A blistering race from the very start, the leading twelve women all ran within world record pace through the opening fifteen kilometers.
By the halfway point, Assefa was more than a minute inside world record pace and alone at the head of the race, streaking ahead of the field.
Eventually, so to speak, she crossed the finish line almost six minutes ahead of Kenya’s Sheila Chepkirui (2:17:49) in second and Tanzania’s Magdalena Shauri in third – who set a national record with her time of 2:18:41.
Meanwhile, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge won a record fifth title in the men’s race, stopping the clock at 2:02:42, the fifth-fastest time of his career.
The two-time Olympic champion was challenged almost all the way by Derseh Kindie but he eventually outpaced the Ethiopian about 31 kilometers into the race and won by 31 seconds. Vincent Kipkemboi (KEN) finished second in 2:03:13.
“It didn’t go as expected but that’s how sport is,” Kipchoge said after the race, admitting he thought he would break the world record.
“I’ve learned lessons. I have won but I’ve not broken the world record. Every race is a learning lesson.”
The pace of this year’s Berlin Marathon was underscored by a record nine men finishing inside 2:05 and a record eight women finishing inside 2:20.
These super shoes are even better than I thought.
A former 800m specialist, Assefa only started racing marathons in April last year. She made her intentions clear on her return to Berlin, setting a lightning-quick early pace before reaching the halfway mark in 1:06:20.
The 29-year-old, tracking her male pacemaker Azmera Gebru, continued to gain time as she moved to the brink of something special.
I’m no mathematician, but seems like she negative-split the second half in 1:05:33.
One of six women to be on world record pace by then, Assefa maintained that speed to move clear and – at the 37km mark (23 miles) – she was just three seconds per kilometer slower than Kipchoge’s time at the same stage.
Say that again. Through 23M, she was only 3 seconds per kilometer slower than the fastest MALE marathoner in human history.
Next day, 0900, I had already heard from one suspicious Olympian.
“What are you thinking, Jack, about a woman running under 2 hours and 12 minutes? You think there might be an issue here? Just saying – check out the results of Berlin Marathon, if you haven’t already. Hilarious!”
You think that’s funny?
Faster than Steve Spence, Bill Reifsnyder, Jon Anderson.
2:11:53 is one second slower than Herm Atkin’s PR.
If Assefa was an American MALE, she’d be tied with John Dimick for 98th on the list of top 100 marathon PRs of all time.
ALL TIME.
Somebody must be kidding.
How about this conversation on the Citius podcast with Jared Ward, 2016 Olympian – 6th place in Rio – with a 2:09:25 PR.
And are we not amused?
In Berlin, you end up getting into a bit of a battle in the late stages of the race with Tigist Assefa. Put us in your shoes. You all of a sudden hear a motorcycle coming up on you and it’s the women’s leader. You have to be looking at your watch thinking, ‘this can’t be right’?
“I was like, ‘who is this? Is this some local athlete that’s a hometown hero? That must be what it is’. And then the car comes up and I thought, ‘no, this isn’t the lead. There’s no way’. I looked at my watch and she’s running 2:12 pace — and for the first time since ninth grade in high school, I’ve got a girl coming up on me. She looked awesome. She pulled up next to me, I look over, and she looked like she was on a Sunday morning jog. Her pacer looked like he was working, but she looked fine…
So I take off again and then she catches me again. It was like a nightmare. It was like being chased by zombies that weren’t even breathing hard. And then that kilometer came and my watch beeped 2:56 and I was like, ‘oh, this girl is flying!’… I sprinted for all I was worth that last 800 and got out of her shot and crossed the line in time to be out of her way.”
https://citiusmag.com/podcast/citius-mag-podcast-jared-ward-2023
“I truly wish the authorities had acted to prevent this entirely foreseeable situation, for a few reasons. The main one is that the range of responses to them (super shoes) is so large (from plus 11% in running efficiency to minus 11%) that we cannot sit with any confidence and evaluate performances between different athletes independent of this nagging doubt over what the shoes do. That is…the differences between athletes is smaller than the differences made by the shoe, to the same athlete, and between different athletes.”
https://tonireavis.com/2023/10/15/whats-artificial-whats-not/