Athletics may be about to witness arguably the greatest sporting achievement of all time, Eliud Kipchoge may be the first human to run a marathon in under 2 hours. I argue however that whilst this is a compelling event athletics is at risk of ruining any interest in marathon running as a sport. Now, with all endurance sport there is two ways it becomes compelling to watch. Either the competition is so enthralling that the fans want to know who will win, or a person is attempting something that will redefine human limits, and the fans want to know if they will succeed or fail. Here I think that athletics has a lot to learn from the sport of cycling. Both competitive races and record breaking achievements are vital to the health of a sport.
Unfortunately, athletics has made the marathon an event that every race is chasing records, and the sporting world is a worse place for it. Marathons are currently run using pacemakers which seek to set a pace that helps achieve a fast time. Now that appears a simple enough idea but it fundamentally changes the way races are run and limits to use of tactics. Now if the average runners amongst us head out with a friend a pacemaker the affect will be limited but get a on a bike and cycle at 20kph, the pace these athletes run a marathon, and the affect becomes apparent.
This means that every marathon becomes a race of attrition where the strongest merely sits at the pre-set tempo until no one else can hold on. That is how Eliud Kipchoge has won almost every marathon he has ever entered. To be clear, he is a fantastic athlete who deserves his success. But the use of pacemakers removes the opportunity for a weaker athlete to beat him tactically. Without pacemakers Kipchoge has a choice, set a higher pace but use more energy, or set a slower pace which may allow a slightly slower runner to beat him in a sprint at the end of the race. This would be a particularly compelling scenario with the presence of Mo Farah who is famous for his fast finish.
Would Kipchoge have won the majority of the races anyway, probably. Would they have often been slower, again its likely. But athletics currently does not give itself room for these compelling tactical battles to play out in the way they do in road cycling.
Now, the Ineos 1.59 challenge is an exciting place where records can be attempted with all the trimmings. I would liken this to the hour record in cycling. It’s a different type of event that is equally compelling where the best of all time can attempt to the seemingly impossible. So athletics, please let a race be a race without interference. Fans would accept the slightly slower times, in return for genuine the genuine tactical and physical contest they would get in return.
