Olympic Marathon Preview: Men

August 6, 2008

The men’s marathon of the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing will take place on the last day of the Olympics on August, 24th. Who are the favourites? Who are the underdogs?
The current standigs of the Best times in the marathon this year is as follows (only participants of the Olympics are included):
2:05:15 Martin Lel KEN
2:05:24 Samuel Kamau Wanjiru KEN
2:05:30 Abderrahim Goumri MAR
2:06:17 Ryan Hall USA
2:06:38 Deriba Merga ETH
2:06:40 Tsegay Kebede ETH
2:07:23 Viktor Röthlin SUI
2:07:46 Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot KEN
2:08:23 Mubarak Hassan Shami QAT
2:08:34 Yared Asmerom ERI
2:08:36 Satoshi Osaki JPN
2:08:51 Yonas Kifle ERI
2:09:24 Simon Munyutu FRA
2:09:38 José Ríos ESP

Remember, those are only the times of this year and there might be runners that have been selected because of performances in last autumn.
As everyone knows (or should know) by now, marathon world record holder Haile Gebrselassie is running 10.000m in the Beijing Games. This – for sure – opens the door for the Kenyans, that are still waiting for a first gold medal in an Olympic marathon. However, it remains to be seen if they can brake this ban. The men’s race will most likely will be a tactical one. We will see some unknown guys running in front after 5 to 15km to present themself and to get some media attention (as it’s usual the case in an Olympic marathon). The favourites will bunch up behind and will be very careful in choosing the right pace, i.e. a slow pace. The eventual winner will run a negative split, because the real race will start at around 30K and from there on it will be really interesting. There are definitely some guys in the field that have a good speed, so the Kenyan’s should be careful. On the other hand Samuel Wanjiru should have the ability to run the second half sub 1:05.
So, at the end it will be Kenya against the rest of the world. The European hope is of course Viktor Röthlin of Switzerland, who already showed great performances in similar conditions (e.g. in Osaka last year). Also the Americans Ryan Hall and Dathan Ritzenhein will be in contention and will bring some colour into the lead pack.
On the other hand it’s an Olympic marathon and the last Olympic marathons always were won by outsiders – at least on the men’s side.
Unfortunately there won’t be any German marathon runners, even if 3 Germans broke the IAAF B-standard of 2:18 in the qualification period (Martin Beckmann: 2:15:22, Falk Cierpinski: 2:15:48, Mario Kröckert: 2:16:07)