Lornah Kiplagat in action at the 2006 IAAF Road Running Championships in Debrecen (© Getty Images)
MonteCarloThe respected track and field statisticians, A. Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava continue their end of season review, with the 2006 competitive highlights of the road events, the Road Running and Race Walks – Part Five of eight.
MEN – Road Running and Race Walks
Road Running
It was another fast year for men’s half marathon as seven athletes recorded times under 60 minutes. 33-year-old Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, having already achieved everything on track including multiple World records, two Olympic titles and four 10,000m World titles, broke the World record for the Half Marathon just two weeks into 2006. In the middle of January in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, he lowered he World record under 59 minutes to 58:55. Paul Kosgei (KEN) took the second spot on the year list winning the Berlin Half marathon in April in 59:07. The World Road Running Championships were conducted at the 20km distance with Zersenay Tadesse (ERI) grabbing the win in Debrecen, Hungary. Depth of the men’s half marathon was better than last season, in 2006 we had 24 athletes under 61 minutes, in 2005 there were 19, 22 in 2004 and 18 in 2003. Kenya has 64 athletes in the world top 100 with Japan following at 17.
The Marathon season was a good one. Seven athletes went under 2:07 in comparison to just Gebrselassie doing that during the 2005 season. Kenyans Sammy Korir (2:06:38 – Rotterdam) and Felix Limo (2:06:39 – London) scored fast early season wins in April.
Gebrselassie further strengthened his grip of the road running scene. The Ethiopian, who is ranked number one in road running, won two marathons with fast times including a world leading 2:05:56 national record in Berlin in September. In December Gebrselassie added another win in Fukuoka with a 2:06:52 finish. He had started the season with a ninth place finish in London (2:09:05). Gebrselassie has now run five career marathons winning three of them and has set three national records and four sub 2:07 results. He will surely be looking to add a major title over marathon soon. He already has a title in 1500m (World Indoor 1999), 3000m (World Indoor: 1997, 1999, 2003), 10,000m (World: 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, Olympic: 1996, 2000), and Half Marathon (2001). He only missed a title for 5000m where he finished second in 1993 World Championships, but did win the World Junior title in 1992.
Another strong figure over the marathon distance was Robert K. Cheruiyot (KEN), who won two major US marathons, Boston and Chicago, both with fast times of 2:07:14 and 2:07:35 respectively. Overall depth went to better direction during the 2006 season. There were 37 athletes under 2:09, in 2005 there were 29, 30 in 2004 and 51 in 2003. Kenya is very strong with 57 athletes in the world top 100, Morocco and Japan both have seven.
Road Running World Ranking
Half Marathon Performance List
Marathon Performance List
20km Race Walk
There only were two fast races during the season. First,16-year-old Li Gaobo won the IAAF Race Walking Challenge competition in his native China clocking the fastest time of the year, 1:18:17, Ilya Markov (RUS), at 34 - 17 years older than Li Gaobo - finished just behind the Chinese in the same race in 1:18:18. Former World record holder Francisco Javier Fernández (ESP) raced four times during the season winning three races. He won the World Cup in La Coruña and also grabbed the European title in Gothenburg later. Overall depth went quickly downwards from last year, there were 17 athletes under 1:20, 28 in 2005, 12 in 2004 and 13 in 2004. China is dominating this event with 31 athletes in the world top 100, Russia has 15.
50km Race Walk
Nathan Deakes (AUS) was in the spotlight following his 50km World record at the National Championships in Geelong in December. Other than this result, the year was quite quiet in terms of top results.
The 50km season started with a World junior best of 3:41.10 by 18-year-old Zhao Jianguo (CHN) who won the Asian Championships in Wajima, Japan. The Olympic silver medallist from 2004, Denis Nizhegorodov, won the World Cup in a fast time of 3:38:02. The Russian still holds the fastest ever 50km time 3:35:29 which he recorded in 2004 Russian Championships, but that time was not ratified as a World record as there was no EPO test carried out. After winning the double over 20/50km walks at the Commonwealth Games in March, Nathan Deakes did not reach top positions in his two international 20km races. He did however break the World record in December with 3:35:47 at the National Championships in Geelong. At the European Championships Yohan Diniz (FRA) upset the Russian favourites and also Trond Nymark (NOR), who had finished second at the World Cup in a national record of 3:41:30. Diniz won with a personal best of 3:41:39 in Gothenburg followed by Spanish veteran Jesús Ángel García (3:42:48). Some overall depth was lost here too, 11 athletes went under 3:45 this season with 16 in 2005. In 2004 we had 11 and 10 in 2003. China has 16 athletes in the world top 100, France and Russia both have seven.
Race Walking World Ranking
20km Road Walk Performance List
50km Road Walk Performance List
WOMEN – Road Running and Race Walks
Road Running
The World Road Running championships contested over 20km at the start of October brought victory for the Netherlands’ Lornah Kiplagat in a World record of 1:03:21 which brought her a $50,000 bonus from the IAAF.
Constantina Tomescu of Romania, 36, second in that World Championships race sharing a European record of 47:10 for 15km with Kiplagat in the process. At the Chicago marathon on the way to running to a 2:24:25 fifth place set intermediate times for 25k (1:21:31) and 30k (1:38:30) which is ratified would be World for those two distances, bettering splits of 1:22:13 and 1:38:49 set by Japan's Mizuki Noguchi at the 2005 Berlin Marathon.
The fastest over the half marathon distance in 2006 was Kenya’s Edith Masai who ran 1:07:16 when winning the Berlin Half Marathon in April. The 39-year-old who on the track this summer set a Kenyan record for 5000m of 14:33.84 remains a remarkably versatile performer.
Britain’s World Marathon champion and record holder Paula Radcliffe took the year off to start a family and thereby left vacant the position as the No 1 road racer. But there was no single runner capable of filling that void, however, three new entries into the top-10 of All-Time – Deena Kastor 2:19:36 in London, Zhou Chunxiu 2:19:51 in Seoul, and Berhane Adere 2:20:42 in Chicago – still made 2006 another strong marathon year. Especially Kastor's run in London was very impressive as she left a world class field trailing by almost two minutes.
But still not even Kastor managed to win another marathon in 2006. In her other race – New York – she had to settle for 6th place almost three minutes behind Jelena Prokopcuka, who was second in Boston to Rita Jeptoo who finished 4th in New York.
This going-around-in-circles pattern had several other variations: Berhane Adere was 4th in London but won Chicago, Gete Wami won Berlin but was 2nd in Los Angeles to Lidiya Grigoryeva who was 5th in New York, Catherine Ndereba won Osaka but ended up 4th in New York, Constantina Tomescu was 7th in London but then took out Chicago at world record pace to end up 5th, Tetyana Hladyr was a sensational No 2 in New York.
Depth wise the marathon seems to have found something of a plateau because 10th place in 2:23 and 100th place in 2:31 puts 2006 perfectly on par with every other year list since the beginning of the new Millennium.
Road Running World Ranking
Half Marathon Performance List
Marathon Performance List
20Km Race Walk
Ryta Turava (BLR) took the final step to the No 1 position in 2006. 4th in the 2004 Olympics and 2nd in the 2005 World Championships, this year she won both the World Cup and the European Championships in convincing fashion leaving the runner-up about one minute behind.
Statistically the patterns looked very familiar in the 2006 World list, i.e. a very strong presence of two nations: Among the top-15 there were eight Russian and four Chinese walkers. In the World Cup Russia occupied positions 2 – 3 – 5 and China 4 – 6.
In the European Championships, however, the Russian statistical depth didn't give the same return: A silver medal (Olga Kaniskina) plus a 17th place must have been a major disappointment.
