News25 Oct 2008


Barmasai’s Marathon transition continues in Frankfurt

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Bernard Barmasai on the eve of the Frankfurt Marathon (© Victah Sailer)

The streets of Eldoret are paved with gold medallists. “Kipchoge Keino, Moses Tanui, Moses Kiptanui, Patrick Sang, Eliud Kipchoge, and many, many more. Eliud is my neighbour...” This is Bernard Barmasai speaking, of his home town. Because Eldoret, in the western highlands of Kenya is the heartland of the country’s distance running success. Barmasai is another of those golden boys, and the former World record holder for the 3000m Steeplechase intends to bring a bit of that lustre to the Dresdner Kleinwort Frankfurt Marathon on Sunday.

As it happens, since Kenyans are particularly thick on the ground in marathon races, Barmasai is not the only former Steeplechase World record holder running here in Frankfurt. Wilson Boit Kipketer, the man who preceded him on the record lists is also here. But like with his revision of Boit Kipketer’s record, Barmasai has proved the more adept marathoner so far.

It’s over a decade since Baramasai set his World record, but he took the biggest slice off the mark in years. Boit Kipketer had broken the record of another Kenyan ‘great’, Moses Kiptanui, with 7:59.08 in Zurich in mid-August 1997. But that record lasted just 11 days, before Barmasai tore it apart, with a 7:55.72 in Cologne.

“That was the same day that Wilson Kipketer set the 800 metres World record,” says Barmasai recalling his barrier-breaking performance. “It was a great day for us, and a wonderful meeting.” Barmasai is still the third fastest of all-time, behind another colleague, Stephen Cherono, who masquerades nowadays as Saif Saaeed Shaheen of Qatar.

A knee injury which was already plaguing Barmasai during the World Championships in Edmonton 2001, when he won a bronze medal, decided this new career arc.

“I tried so many doctors in Holland (through his manager, Jos Hermens), but finally a Doctor Pieter near Nijmegen helped me. Then I had surgery in Kenya, which went OK, but I realised I couldn’t do the steeplechase any more. So I sat down with my manager, and we decided the only thing to do was the Marathon. But it is very different training, it took me over a year to get used to it. I ran my first Marathon in 2005, a 2:14 in Rotterdam, which wasn’t bad. I saw I could do it.”

But it was not without some mental as well as physical retraining. The steeplechase is one of the hardest track events, but echoing Haile Gebrselassie, who says that the 5000 and 10,000 metres are ‘a joke’ compared to the Marathon, Barmasai just shakes his head at the suggestion that there could be any comparison between the steeple and the 42k event.

“When I think back to my steeplechase training, I would be on the track most of the time, with a 20k once in a while. With the Marathon, it’s 20 and 30k every week. And no matter how hard you run a steeplechase, it’s seven minutes something compared to two hours. It’s totally different.” The look on his face as he considers the task ahead on Sunday is enough to convince anyone.

Within a year of his Marathon debut, he reduced his time to a world class 2:08:52 in Paris 2006, whereas his colleague Boit Kipketer has stalled on 2:13:08, which he ran here in Frankfurt last year. “Maybe he hasn’t made the transition in his mind,” says Barmasai. “I couldn’t see the (Marathon) distance before. You have to focus, concentrate, put in your mind, this is not the steeplechase.”

Barmasai’s own career has stalled since Paris two years ago. A foot injury in the Vienna Marathon 2007 caused him to drop out at 35k, and he was still feeling it in April this year, when ran 2:13 in Hamburg. Yet despite reaching 38 years of age, Barmasai’s ambition seems as lively as when he started running as a schoolboy 24 years ago.

“I really expected a personal best in Hamburg, I was very disappointed. With good weather here (Frankfurt), and a flat course, I’d like to shatter my best. And I would still like to run a Marathon in the Olympics. I was only fourth (in the steeple) in Sydney (2000). I know I’ll be 42 by London, but I have to tell myself, I need to prove myself.”

Pat Butcher for the IAAF

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