Posted: September 26, 2004

Athletics: Why Radcliffe Failed in Athens

Berlin, Sunday, Sept 26, 12.30gmt

Felix Limo won the real,-Berlin Marathon on Sunday morning, and then told us why Paula Radcliffe and Paul Tergat failed in the Olympic Marathon last month.

“In Athens, it was proven that that the people who can run an average time rather than world records, are the people who win championships,” says Limo.

“Running big city marathons and championships are two different things. In the city marathons, you have up to five pacemakers taking you at a level pace to whatever time you want. In championships, you run a random tempo, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. It’s not easy to cope.

“The best people to take to championships are those who have not won many marathons, people who can run 2hr 8min, because the tempo that wins championship marathons is the same.

“If you take someone like Tergat, who has run 2.04 (2.04.55 in Berlin 2003), when he wanted to ‘go’, he was under pressure, and he failed”.

Limo thought he had a chance of representing Kenya in Athens, but was overlooked, despite his two previous sub-2.07 clockings. He was happy with his win on Sunday, in 2.06.33, but feels he can run close to two minutes faster.

“I always have a problem with marathons. In Rotterdam (in April), I ran 2.06.14 into a headwind. Here, the weather was also not favouring us. It was cold at the start, when it was raining, and I had a bit of back pain. I hurt my back working in my compound, too much bending over. I’m not disappointed, 2.06 is not slow, but on a good day, I think I can do 2.04.45”.

His colleague, Joseph Riri, who finished second, in a personal best 2.06.49 also had a theory about why Japanese women are so good. Yoko Shibui had just won the Berlin women’s race in 2.19.41, to become the fourth fastest woman in history. Riri, who trains in Nagoya, central Japan says, “It’s because they train harder, even than Kenyan men. In Japan, I see women training in big groups, sometimes as far as 40-45 kilometres a day for weeks. The most I ever do is 38 kilometres”