Naoko Takahashi (© Victah Sailer)
Naoko Takahashi is back in . Not having run a single race since her epic sub 2:20 win a year ago, the Japanese Olympic Champion will run again in next Sunday’s 'real - Berlin Marathon.'
In a press conference in Berlin yesterday, Takahashi tried to keep expectations low, but scores of Japanese journalists have once again travelled to Berlin expecting another exceptional race from the 30-year-old Japanese superstar. As last year Fuji TV will show the ‘real - Berlin Marathon’ live in Japan.
Haile Gebrselassie was almost on the start list of the race but had to cancel a couple of weeks ago because of his foot and calf problems, and as such the men’s race will probably not see split times in the region of the world best. But it could well get exciting as Berlin will witness a battle of returning past champions, as three winners from the last four years will be competing on Sunday.
It was last year in Berlin that Naoko Takahashi became the first woman to run a sub 2:20 marathon. The Japanese runner smashed one of the landmark psychological and physical barriers of women’s athletics, when she reached the finish line on Tauentzienstraße in a time of 2:19:46 hours.
For two decades the world's most prominent women long distance runners had tried to reach a sub 2:20 time for the classic distance of 42,195 km. But it was Naoko Takahashi who succeeded first, and in Japan, a sensational 53.5 % of the TV watching public tuned in to television last year, when Takahashi reached the finish.
Yet just one week later Takahashi's performance was substantially upstaged by Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba who bettered the world best again, when winning the Chicago marathon in 2:18:47, almost a minute faster than Takahashi's Berlin run.
“It helped me a lot that Naoko Takahashi had beaten the barrier a week before in Berlin“, Catherine Ndereba said afterwards.
In any case Takahashi had secured her place in athletics history, as the first women to have run sub 2:20.
This year Britain’s Paula Radcliffe became the third women to break through that time, when in her marathon debut she won London in a sensational time of 2:18:56.
While Ndereba and Radcliffe will run Chicago in October, Takahashi has opted for Berlin once more.
“I was not angry, losing the world record to Catherine Ndereba, because I knew something like this can go quick. For me it is nice to see that other athletes are also able to run these sort of times. But of course it was a fate to lose the world record after just one week”, Takahashi said.
“I am very happy to be able to come back to Berlin. I liked the city, the organisation of the marathon and the people. And I just hope I will be able to enthuse the spectators once more with a very good performance.”
Since June she has trained at high altitude in Boulder (Colorado). It is the same preparation scheme as last year before she came to Berlin. But there is one major difference, as this year Takahashi has lost two months preparation. During her training programme she twice encountered problems – first with her right ankle, then she had to stop running for ten days because of a pain in her right calf muscle.
So naturally Naoko Takahashi did not talk about the possibility of attacking the World best. Instead she said: “I feel well. But I really don’t know what sort of time I am able to run. I will know this no earlier than during the race. Last year the record was my aim. And because of this I used pacemakers. This time I want to enjoy the race and see what will be possible for me. So I will not use pacemakers this time.”
Still Naoko Takahashi could be forced to run fast if she does not want to disappoint the millions of fans back in Japan watching TV. With Adriana Fernandez she will face tough opposition. The Mexican winner of the New York Marathon 1999 has come back after giving birth, and has said that she intends to better her personal best of 2:24:06. There is talk of a time goal in the low 2:20’s.
“Naoko wants to win”, said her coach Yoshio Koide in Berlin and added: “I have an idea of how fast she can run. But I will not speak about this in the press conference as I don’t want to put her under pressure.”
It is the first time since 1994 that both Berlin champions will return again to defend their titles. In the men’s race, Joseph Ngolepus upset the favourites last year. Entered as a pacemaker, he ran the whole race and won. The Kenyan achieved a personal best of 2:08:47 hours.
Based in Detmold Joseph Ngolepus belongs to the group of German agent Volker Wagner, whose athletes have won the Berlin Marathon various times since the eighties. Ngolepus, is a training partner of Tegla Loroupe (Kenya) and track runner Berhane Adere (Ethiopia), and wants to prove that he can do even better than last year.
“It is a different and a better situation for him this time, because he does not have to work as a pacemaker before the decisive part of the race. I can well imagine that he is able to run 2:07,” confirmed Wagner.
Besides Naoko Takahashi and Joseph Ngolepus there will be more champions in the race. Kenya’s Simon Biwott who won this race two years ago, could well be the number one favourite. Biwott’s prominence grew, when he missed the World Championship gold medal by just one second in Edmonton in 2001. In the closest finish the marathon has seen in Olympic or World Championship history, Ethiopia’s Olympic Champion Gezahegne Abera (Ethiopia) out sprinted the Kenyan in 2:12:42 hours.
The man who still holds the Berlin course record has also joined this year’s elite field: Ronaldo da Costa, who set a totally unexpected World best in 1998, clocking 2:06:05, is back. The Brazilian has never produced another race of a similar quality, but the magnitude of his achievement in Berlin in 1998 was enough to make him a very prominent person in Brazil. Interestingly, he was the first man to run the marathon in an average speed of more than 20Km per hour.
Another prominent name to run Berlin this year will be Moses Tanui. With his personal best of 2:06:16, the 37-year-old still holds the fifth fastest marathon time ever run. Having had a weaker year in 2001, Tanui bounced came back this spring, when winning the Vienna marathon in 2:10:25.
Altogether 41,376 entries from 90 nations have been attracted to the ‘real - Berlin Marathon’ and as such Germany’s greatest road race could well become the biggest marathon in the world this year. But of course, in the Berlin field there will also be some 8,300 inline skaters. In total 32,752 runners have entered the race, with wheel chair athletes and walkers also competing.
Jörg Wenig for the IAAF
