Radcliffe
has no
psychological
advantage over Tulu.
Steven
Downes for the IAAF
April 12 2002 - London - For Derartu Tulu, twice an Olympic gold medallist at
10,000m and the defending women’s champion in Sunday’s Flora London Marathon,
running 26 miles 385 yards is a straightforward matter of all or nothing.
Tulu was speaking from experience when asked whether trying to combine the demands of the World Cross Country Championships and a marathon within less than a month was advisable.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea,” Tulu said. And she should know.
The question was posed because Sunday sees the Ethiopian resume her rivalry with Britain’s top distance runner, Paula Radcliffe. Radcliffe will be making her marathon debut just 22 days after winning her second World Cross title.
Tulu, herself IAAF World Cross Country champion in 1995, 1997 and 2000, remembers the unpleasant experience of finishing a disappointing sixth at the London Marathon when trying to race over the classic distance so soon after the rough and tumble of 8km over mud and hills.
“I completely ignored the World Cross this year. I did not even watch it on television,” she said. “I do not take the event seriously because I know I do not have the speed to challenge for it seriously.
“Since the Sydney Olympic Games, because of a leg injury, I have focused completely on improving my endurance,” said Tulu.
Tulu, now aged 30, secured her place in athletics history in 1992, when she won the first women’s Olympic 10,000m in a memorable battle with South Africa’s Elana Meyer.
Her career seemed to have reached a plateau, however, as track titles eluded her, and she turned to the marathon in 1997. Motherhood followed a year later. And then Tulu came back, stronger than ever before, regaining her Olympic 10,000m title in Sydney in a thrilling encounter.
Last year, she followed that up with victories in two of the world’s top road races, the London Marathon in a personal best 2hr 23min 57sec, and in the Tokyo Marathon, while in between, she managed to win a hectic last-lap sprint for the 10,000m world title in Edmonton, where long-time leader Radcliffe was – once again – bitterly disappointed to be run out of the medals at the finish.
Radcliffe has responded by retaining her two IAAF world titles, at half-marathon and cross-country, and has spoken positively about how she sees her future as a road runner. By dealing a defeat to Tulu when they clashed in March over 10km on the road in heat and humidity of Puerto Rico, where Radcliffe came within four seconds of the world best, the British woman may consider she has attained an important psychological advantage over Tulu.
But that is not the impression formed from speaking to Tulu.
“I have made a successful transition to the marathon,” she says. “We don’t know yet whether Paula will make a successful transition.
“In 2000, it was difficult for me to race well at the World Cross Country and in the London Marathon. My focus then was to qualify for the Olympic Games, and the London Marathon was a springboard for that. I was concentrating on cross-country at the time.
“Now, I have been concentrating on improving my endurance. I couldn’t be in better shape, and I want to improve my time. That is my target. I don’t know what the other girls will be doing. The fact that Paula Radcliffe is running does not come in to my thinking.
“I know from my training that I am in good shape – I have recorded improvement after improvement. The 5,000, the 10,000 and cross-country used to be my cup of tea, but since Sydney, because of my injury, I have not been able to do the sort of speedwork I used to do, so I have concentrated completely on endurance.
“Last month, I took stock of my defeats in Puerto Rico and my poor run in the Yokohama Ekiden, and I went home and I just trained.”
In common with several other experienced marathon runners, Tulu appears inspired to more training than ever before by the debut of Radcliffe. Antonio Pinto, Portugal’s three-time London champion, said that the marathon debut in the men’s race of Haile Gebrselassie had prompted him to train harder than for an other race in his career with the singular exception of the Sydney Olympics.
For Tulu, though, her preparations are part of a team effort, with her husband, Zewde Denboba, a vital component; not least because he spends much of his time caring for their four-year-old child. “If it hadn’t been for my husband,” Tulu says, “it would be impossible for me to train as hard as I do.”
It is almost as if Tulu is on a mission to succeed as a runner, a mission she shares with many Ethiopian team mates. “I have a deep love for athletics which I simply cannot explain,” she says. “All Ethiopian runners have a commitment to their running that cannot be matched anywhere else in the world. Running is our life. We are wedded to it.”
