Felix Limo who won the Real Berlin Marathon today, gave his explanation of 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 2:08, 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."
Pat Butcher for the IAAF
