By David Monti with Ken Nakamura
The Fukuoka International Open Marathon Championships will be held Sunday in Japan, and is likely to have an impact on the 2008 world marathon list, if history is any guide. The 61 previous editions of this invitation-only race have reliably produced fast times, most years.
Beijing Olympic Marathon champion Samuel Wanjiru produced the fastest-ever performance at Fukuoka when he made his marathon debut there one year ago. The Japan-based Kenyan clocked 2:06:39, one of four sub-2:07 life-to-date performances recorded at Fukuoka. Moreover, the 2:08 barrier has been broken in Fukuoka 13 times, while 30 performances sub-2:09 have been recorded here.
Fukuoka ranks seventh amongst all the world's marathons in producing fast times throughout its history. The real,-Berlin Marathon is #1 with the average of the top-10 performances there equaling 2:05:34. London is second (2:05:58), and Chicago is third (2:06:12). The top-10 fastest marks at Fukuoka average 2:07:13.
Kenyan Felix Limo, who is running Fukuoka this year, ranks fourth in world history based on the average of his top-5 performances. Limo has run 2:06:14 in Rotterdam, 2004; 2:06:39 in London, 2006; 2:06:42 in Amsterdam, 2003; 2:06:44 in Berlin, 2004; and 2:07:02 in Chicago in 2005. That gives him a five-race average of 2:06:40, surpassed only by Haile Gebrselassie (2:05:07), Khalid Khannouchi (2:06:16), and Paul Tergat (2:06:37).
A look at Fukuoka's history reveals that a more cautious approach in the early kilometers is the key to running fast time. Japan's Takeyuki Nakayama ran the most aggressively of any athlete in the history of the race when he won in 1987. He blasted through 5 km in 14:35 and 10 km in 29:05. He still holds the fastest-ever split for this race through 35 km (1:44:25), but in the next 5 km the wheels fell off. He slowed to 16:20 for that segment, and finished in 2:08:18. Wanjiru went through 10 km almost a minute slower than Nakayama in 30:03, but he ran wonderfully consistent 5 km splits of about 15 minutes, tightening the screws from 30 km to 35 km (14:44), and breaking Atsushi Fujita's previous course record of 2:06:51 set in 2000.
It is one of the greatest honors in Japanese sport for a home country athlete to win Fukuoka. That's only happened three time in the last ten years, and five times in the last 20, with Tsuyoshi Ogata the last man to do it in 2004.
There's a complete list of winners for your reference on the website of the Association of Road Racing Statisticians at this link: ARRD.net.
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