Two-hour marathon a step closer

A CENTURY ago, completing a marathon in under three hours was likely to land the world's leading athletes with a podium finish.

Now experts are for the first time raising the possibility of a sub two-hour marathon after Haile Gebrselassie, the greatest male marathon runner, knocked another 27 seconds off his own world record in Berlin yesterday.

The Ethiopian, 35, smashed his own world best with a time of two hours, three minutes and 59 seconds – the first time the milestone of two hours and four minutes has been breached.

Dr Angus Hunter, an expert in sports physiology at Stirling University, said it was now just a matter of time before the two-hour barrier was breached.

"It's definitely possible," he said. "You've got two main factors: genetics and environmental. If you look at the last Olympics, with this country you had more money going in and you got more medals. And as emerging countries become more wealthy, they're going to give more support to athletes, both in training and science.

"Also, sports science knowledge is moving ahead all the time. Even though it can be little things in hydration or nutrition, these factors all help to push the window a little further."

Going back to the 19th century, the first record was set by Greece's Spiridon Louis, with a comparatively laggardly time of two hours, 58 minutes and 50 seconds. It was not until 1967 that records approached modern standards, when Australia's Derek Clayton ran two hours, nine minutes, 36 seconds.

Mike Johnston, national endurance manager for Scottish Athletics, who coaches marathon runners, said there was no reason that such improvement in records could not continue. "When you see times like Gebrselassie, the first reaction is to ask, 'How much further can we go?' In the 1980s, two Canadians, Peronnet and Thibault, forecast that in 2000 the world record would be two hours, five minutes and 23 seconds, which is close to the reality.

"And based on their statistics, they reckoned, in 2028, it could be one hour 59 minutes and 36 seconds. You see these statistics and laugh at them, then people start to prove it can be done."

He added: "Obviously, from what we've seen, it can move on again given the right race and conditions. I would not be surprised if Gebrselassie broke it again. At the end of the day, there has to be an innate talent, but then you have to train smart and also very hard, and that in itself is an ability. It's a discipline."

Studying the secret of their success, Dr Hunter pointed out that for Gebrselassie and the other east African long-distance runners who have dominated the sport, environmental factors have been pivotal. He said: "A group in Glasgow did a big study on east African runners and largely concluded that their dominance was down to environmental factors. It's a poor economy and a lot of these guys had to run big distances to school."

Compared with the likes of the 100m record, which has been broken 12 times since the introduction of electronic timing in 1968, but never surpassed by more than 0.05 seconds at a time, Dr Hunter explained how there was greater scope for improvement in marathon times.

"You've got a lot more room to manoeuvre in the marathon because you've got a lot more variables, down to having everything right on that particular day: having had the absolutely correct amount of sleep, of food in the last 24 hours, to the actual conditions suiting that person.

"You could perhaps look at current record holder Paula Radcliffe. Does she perform well in the heat? Probably not, while another person might. So you've definitely got more variables that may advantage one individual on one day, that may push the barrier. So somebody may wipe 30 seconds off it in the next five years, but it's a slow process."

Indeed, Gebrselassie was said to have been aided by some excellent pacemaking and enjoyed perfect racing conditions as he powered to the line to win a total of £78,000 for winning and setting a new record.

Meanwhile, in women's marathon running, record times have dropped in such a way as to suggest that, theoretically, they could become faster than men.

Legendary beginning to a popular modern-day sporting pursuit

THE marathon takes its name from the legend of the messenger who ran from the Greek town of Marathon to announce victory over the Persians. The first account of the run to Athens appeared in Plutarch's On The Glory Of Athens in the first century AD (illustration left). There is some debate over the accuracy of the legendary runner, said to be Pheidippides in the 1876 poem of the same name by Robert Browning.


However, it is worth noting that having completed his task, the messenger dropped dead from exhaustion.

When the Olympics were revived in the late 19th century, the first selection race in Greece was won in a time of three hours and 18 minutes.

The first Olympic Marathon in 1896 was won by a Greek water-carrier, Spiridon "Spiros" Louis, in a time of two hours 58 minutes and 50 seconds.

Women did not compete in an Olympic marathon until the 1984 games in Los Angeles, first won by Joan Benoit of the US in a time of 2:24:52. There are about 800 marathons run around the world each year.