Olympic
Champion Abera is now the World Champion
K. Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
3
August 2001 - Gezahegne Abera, the reigning Olympic marathon champion won the
marathon in the 8th IAAF World Championships in Athletics to become only the
second marathon runner in history to win both the Olympic gold medal as well as
the World Championships gold medal.
In the second World Championships in Roma, in 1987, Rosa Mota won the gold medal in the marathon; a year later in Seoul, she won the Olympic gold medal in the same event, becoming the first runner to win both titles. Abera is the first male runner to win both of these coveted titles. He is also the first Ethiopian to win the World Championships marathon.
The time may have been slow, but it was a thrilling race to the finish. Although we expected Abera to have a better finishing kick, the outcome was far from certain until the last metres of the race. Simon Biwott of Kenya fought well against the reigning Olympic Champion.
Although this race was heralded as the first World Championships marathon in six years to be contested in the reasonable weather, unfortunately it was not the case.
“When two performance hindering factors comes into play, their effects are more than the sum of each. Today we had four performance hindering factors - heat, humidity, the intense sun and altitude,” said a marathon expert, Professor David Martin, an exercise physiologist.
Naturally the runners started cautiously. Even when Ronnie Holassie (TRI) opened up a huge lead, all the main contenders stayed well behind. Holassie, as expected was eventually reeled back. One-hour three minutes and thirty seconds into the race, the chase pack swallowed Holassie, but real racing did not start yet. That came approximately five kilometres later when one of the hot favourites of the race, Abdelkader El Mouaziz started to pick up the pace, which was according to his plan. El Mouaziz was alone in front, and the chase pack of five runners formed behind El Mouaziz, which included Gezahegne Abera, the reigning Olympic Champion, Stefano Baldini, the reigning European Champion, Tesfaye Tola, an Olympic bronze medallist, Simon Biwott, and Shigeru Aburaya.
One of the great hopes for marathon-crazed Japan, the Asian record holder Atsushi Fujita, fell behind here. After the race, Fujita who started the race with an injured right leg said: “ The pain killer worked for me, so the pain was not a problem. Once I started the race, my only thought was to be competitive all the way. But when the real racing started, I could not cope with it, perhaps because I had not done the required training in the latter part of July. My strides were unbalanced as well. I was sort of dragging one of my feet.
“My problem, I think, was that I started marathon training (for the Worlds) with an injured left leg. In retrospect, that was my mistake. I must have tried to compensate for the left leg, which probably caused injury to my right leg. It was my mistake. I have no excuse (for my dismal performance).”
“Can you comment on your twelfth place finish?” said one of the Japanese reporters.
“It is not the twelfth place that bothers me, but the fact that I was the fourth Japanese,” replied Fujita. Apparently he felt the responsibility of being the national record holder. “I will train for a year, and try to redeem myself next fall in either the Berlin or Chicago marathon,” concluded Fujita.
When El Mouaziz surged away, some observer recalling what happened in the last year’s New York City marathon probably thought, “This is it. The race is over.” However, El Mouaziz was not able to make a complete break.
A few kilometres later, Abera, and Baldini lead the chase and El Mouaziz was soon reeled back into the pack. In fact, an hour and forty-six minutes into the race, the quintet of Baldini, Tola, Abera, Biwott and Aburaya pulled away from El Mouaziz.
Aburaya was the next to lose contact with the leaders. He said after the race, “I was hoping for a medal, because my training went well. Since the men’s marathon was the first event of the program, I want to make it an auspicious start for the team. Unfortunately when they surged, I did not have anything left. But since they came back to me once, I tried to stay as close to the leaders as possible.” Aburaya finished fifth.
Abera surged once after 35Km, but soon he eased back and let the other runners catch up. In the final long uphill, which peaked around 39Km, Biwott pushed the pace, and only Abera stayed with him. Two hours and one minute into the race, Abera again pushed the pace, and it seemed as if the race was over. However, two and a half minutes later, Biwott was back in the lead. “I was just testing the field,” said Abera after the race. They ran next eight minutes together and the tension was mounting. They entered the stadium together.
“When I reached the stadium, I was sure that I can win because of my sprinting ability,” said Abera at the medallists’ press conference.
It was quite a contrary to what Biwott was thinking at the time: “I was going for the gold medal, but I was ready to accept the silver medal, because I tried to pull away from the Ethiopians but could not.”
To prove Biwott’s point, Abera covered the final 200m of the marathon in approximately 30 seconds, but around the bend, and even through the final home straight, Biwott stayed close. Eventually Abera won by a second., which was the closest marathon finish in World Championships’ history. Previously the five seconds gap between Abel Anton and Martin Fiz in Athens was the closest.
Stefano Baldini was a happy bronze medallist. Reflecting on his up and down career, Baldini said, “After winning the 1998 European Championships, I had lots of problems. I had three stress fractures. I did not run any marathon in 1999, and dropped out of the Sydney Olympic marathon. However, I ran a good marathon this year (2:08:51 for the second place in Torino marathon), and was in good shape for this race.”
With both of the most important medals in possession, what will be Abera’s goal in the future? “I want to win the next World Championships as well as the next Olympics.”
If he succeeds, Abera will surpass the legendary Abebe Bikila, his countryman who won the 1960 as well as 1964 Olympic marathons, the first to do so.
However, that will not be an easy task for Abera, for his countryman, Haile Gebrselassie, two time Olympic Champion as well as four-time (will it be five before the end of the Championships?) World Champion at the 10,000m, is planning to move up to the marathon.
“I welcome Gebrselassie to the marathon,” concluded Abera.
The newly crowned World Champion’s next marathon will be the Fukuoka marathon in December: the race which used to be known as the unofficial world championships of the marathon.
