BEIJING (24-Aug) -- Like Usain Bolt in the 100 and 200 meters, marathoner Sammy Wanjiru blew away the field and the Olympic record here today, surging away from a stacked field to win Kenya's first ever Olympic Marathon gold medal. Just 21 years-old, Wanjiru won his second marathon in three starts, getting under Carlos Lopes's 1984 Games record by nearly three minutes. Unfazed by a blazing sun, he recorded a finish time which would win nearly any cool weather marathon in the spring or fall: 2:06:30.
"The best guy won today," said 2004 ING New York City Marathon champion Hendrick Ramaala of South Africa. "He runs without fear."
Wanjiru beat up on the field right from the opening gun. There would be no dawdling pace at the start of this marathon, not like so many other major championships in the past. Wanjiru and teammates Martin Lel and Luke Kibet got some unexpected assistance from the Eritreans Yared Asmerom and Yonas Kifle, and the pace was hot in the opening kilometers. The first 5 km went down in 14:52, a 2:05:28 marathon finish pace, dramatically faster than anyone had expected.
"It was very difficult to say in that race," said Swiss record holder Viktor Röthlin who chose to run more conservatively and finished sixth.
Throwing caution to the wind, Wanjiru repeatedly went to the front to keep the pace high. His repeated surges systematically whittled the field down to just five at the half-way point, with Lel, Kifle, two-time world champion Jaouad Gharib of Morocco, and young Ethiopian Deriba Merga the only athletes who appeared to still be in contention. Wanjiru was not watching the clock, just using his racing instincts to apply pressure.
"Today was very hard because the weather was hot," said Wanjiru who attended high school in Sendai, Japan, and is fluent in Japanese. "Today I was not thinking about the time, I was only thinking about the medal."
Lel --the pre-race favorite-- and Kifle drifted back just before 30 km, leaving Wanjiru and Merga on the front with Gharib just hanging on. Wanjiru's surges were beginning to take their toll on the 36 year-old Gharib, but he was determined to stay in the game.
"I was watching the race very closely," said Gharib in Arabic through a translator. "There were attempts to get rid of me. Many attempts."
While Gharib would do the best to stay in contention for gold, like everyone else he eventually had to let Wanjiru go. Slightly increasing his pace between 35 and 40 km, he slipped away from Merga and Gharib and locked in the victory. He hit the track in the Bird's Nest stadium and kept pushing all the way to the finish line over the final 500m of the race.
"I'm very happy to be the winner in marathon in Beijing Olympics," Wanjiru said. "In Kenya it is history."
Wanjiru said that he could run much faster in cooler conditions, and that he would like to attack the world record in Berlin in 2009. "I think if I can get a good course, like Berlin, I can run two-zero-four," he said. "Maybe next year I can go there and break the world record."
Gharib held second place to finish alone in 2:07:16, also well under Lopes's 2:09:21 championship record, but Merga would not be so fortunate. As he entered the tunnel to the stadium, the Ethiopian turned around to see his petite teammate, Tsegaye Kebede, about 50 meters back. Merga, who ran 2:06:38 at London last April, was too exhausted to hold off his teammate who had been 16 seconds behind him at half-way. Kebede passed him on the track to take third in 2:10-flat; Merga struggled home in fourth 21 seconds later.
"Finally, I overtook Deriba Merga by several meters," said the boyish-looking Kebede. "I felt very happy because I didn't expect that."
Lel finished a disappointing fifth in 2:10:24, 11 seconds ahead of Röthlin. Gashaw Melese Asfaw of Ethiopia was seventh (2:10:52) and Asmerom was eighth (2:11:11). Asmerom's teammate and early leader, Yonas Kifle, faded badly in the second half to finish 36th in 2:20:23. Kibet, a last minute replacement for the injured Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, dropped out between 25 and 30 km. He was in 8th position at the time and was seen stretching on the side of the road.
The race was a qualified excess for two American runners, Dathan Ritzenhein and Ryan Hall, who finished ninth and tenth in 2:11:59 and 2:12:33, respectively. U.S. marathons coach Joe Vigil said before the race that the winner would probably run in this time range.
"I did the best I could with what I had," said Hall who has a 2:06:17 personal best. "I think I can run much faster but like I said, sometimes you do all the work and it comes together, and sometimes it doesn't."
Defending Olympic champion, Stefano Baldini of Italy, finished 12th in what he hinted would be his last marathon. He had suffered from a minor hamstring tear last week and it was widely thought that he could not finish today.
"In the last ten kilometers it was unbelievable what the Kenyans and Africans were able to do in these conditions," said the two-time European marathon champion. "It's true it's a flat course, but it's still an Olympic Marathon."
Know someone else who's interested in running and triathlon?
