Marathons: Men’s Sat 7am, Women’s Sun 7am, BBC1, 8am Eurosport 1 The men’s marathon is traditionally the final event of the Olympic Games, but this year in Paris they have delivered a switcheroo. The honour of closing the Games instead goes to the women’s marathon, which is a fitting expression of the progressive nature of these Games. It’s hard to believe, but women’s stamina was doubted and they had to fight for the right to run the 26 miles and 385 yards of the marathon.
It has only been an Olympic event for women since it was introduced at the Los Angeles Games in 1984. The gold was won back then, in two hours, 24 minutes and 52 seconds, by Joan Benoit Samuelson of the USA, who made an early break from the pack and ran alone for the next 20-odd miles to the finish. The choice of the route in Paris is significant.
Athletes will run this 40th-anniversary women’s Olympic marathon from the Hôtel de Ville in the heart of the city to Versailles and back, in a race that has serious history. It commemorates the Women’s March on Versailles of 5 October 1789, when thousands of women descended on the royal palace to bring the king back to the Tuileries. That day, Louis XVI finally agreed to ratify the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens.
It’s also a route posing serious physical challenges – by city marathon standards this one is distinctly lumpy, ascending 436 metres and descending slightly more; the steepest gradient a demanding 13.5 per cent. To qualify, women needed a personal best of two hours, 26 minutes and 50 seconds (men a PB of two hours, eight minutes and ten seconds).
The fastest woman in the race is Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia, who ran two hours, 11 minutes and 53 seconds in Berlin last September. It was a stunning performance, but in the records the time has an asterisk, because she was running in a mixed-gender event. The fastest time for a women-only marathon was set in London earlier this year, when Olympic defending champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya completed the course in two hours, 16 minutes and 16 seconds.
The best female runners are seriously swift. The men’s marathon takes place on the penultimate day, and it looks as if the African dominance of the race will continue. Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya and Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele are the big names.
They first raced each other in 2003 and they’ve been taking turns to beat each other over various distances ever since. Kipchoge, now 39, won the past two Olympic marathons and has the second-fastest time ever run on an eligible course. But his preparation has been troubled by the death in February of the brilliant fellow Kenyan Kelvin Kiptum at the age of 24 in a car accident.
Bekele, now 42, has an opportunity – but betting against Kipchoge is a bad idea. And how will their legs and lungs cope with the climbs? Will it come to a sprint to the finish when the racers come to the Esplanade des Invalides? The women’s race on Sunday will be a spectacular conclusion to the Games, and as noteworthy, I hope, as one of my earliest sporting memories – the 1960 marathon at the Olympic Games in Rome. Not that I actually saw it.
What I mostly watched was a black-and-white television image of the Stadio Olimpico with absolutely nothing going on inside it. Back then there wasn’t the technology to follow every stride of the race through the streets. What we got instead was speculation, garbled reports and the delicious suspense of waiting.
And then, at last, galloping into the stadium alone, came a gloriously unexpected figure. He was Ethiopian, he wore no shoes and he had beaten the rest almost literally by miles. Abebe Bikila’s victory was a revelation not only of the beauty of sport, but of its universality.
In the course of a single solo lap, sport was revealed as something to do with the whole world and the joy and wonder of it filled our sitting room in south London. This was sport as it was meant to be..
