News09 Mar 2005


Kenyans continue to re-write marathon record book

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Evans Rutto breaks the finishing tape to win the 2004 Chicago Marathon (© Getty Images)

When the Running Boom took off in the United States in the late 1970s, many of that country’s best amateur athletes got caught up in the fervour. They turned to competitive distance running and soon produced unprecedented levels of excellence.

The boom continued in the 1980s and in 1983 Americans started off in January with 16 sub-2:20 marathon performances and ended the year with a record total of 267.

In the past two decades American fortunes have declined while those of other nations have risen. Most notably, of course, have been the Kenyans, who many years ago began establishing new single year records for sub-2:20s. They cracked the 300 level in 2001, and in the two following years topped out at 343 and 370. (Note: in this analysis performances from all courses believed to be a full 42.195km are considered, inclusive of a few which have a substantial net elevation drop from start to finish.)

Last year, the potent Kenyans made another quantum leap forward reaching a staggering 431 separate sub-2:20 marathon performances around the world. In October alone they scored 126 times, a total most nations would be proud to achieve in a full year. Surprisingly, though, the Kenyans accounted for their year total in just 117 different races, the same number as in 2003 and just one more than in 2002.

The distribution was also more broad-based last year. For example in 2003 there were 46 Kenyan marathon times under 2:10 while in 2004 there were just 29. However, they set record numbers for each time barrier from sub-2:13 thru sub-2:20 with the 200th, 300th and 400th times at 2:14:48, 2:16:52 and 2:19:07 respectively.

Kenyans have begun 2005 with more records, with 33 such times in January and reaching 50 by the end of February. If the trend continues 500 sub-2:20s in a year will be attainable if not in 2005 then in the near future.

Following is the 2004 month-by-month breakdown along with the number of different races by month.

Month: Sub-2:20 performances/Sub-2:20 races
Jan 2004: 10/3
Feb 2004: 22/7
Mar 2004: 45/13
Apr 2004: 75/19
May 2004: 37/10
Jun 2004: 13/4
Jul 2004: 2/1
Aug 2004: 9/4
Sep 2004: 21/5
Oct 2004: 126/29
Nov 2004: 44/12
Dec 2004: 27/10

Marty Post for the IAAF

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