News Archive

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!

For full article on iaaf.org - click here