At the 2023 Berlin Marathon last weekend, Tigist Assefa from Ethiopia set a new women's world record for the marathon with a finishing time of 2h 11m 53s. The previous record of 2:14:04 was set by Brigid Kosgei in the 2019 Chicago Marathon. The previous record to that was the 2:15:25 set by Paula Radcliffe in the 2003 London Marathon.
Assefa also ran the 2022 Berlin Marathon in a time of 2:15:37, which was the third-fastest women’s marathon in history at the time.
The improvement of the new record was 2m 11s and it's fair to say that the huge improvement will raise a lot of eyebrows. Irish sports journalist Cathal Dennehy made the following observations...
1) Tigist Assefa's time of 2:11:53 was faster than the first 11 men's winners of the Berlin Marathon (1974 to 1984).
2) It took until 1967 for a man to run a marathon this fast.
3) The half-marathon split of 1:06:21 would have been a half-marathon world record for women until 2001.
A lot of coverage has been given to the Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1 shoes which weigh just 138 grams. Like other modern high tech shoes, these ones have a forefoot rocker which is designed to trigger forward momentum and increase energy return.
Not only do these shoes cost an eye-watering €500 but Adidas say that they are designed for 'one race – so one marathon – plus familiarisation time'.
The world record time was due in no small part to the technology of these new shoes but I'm sure a lot of people will question if there was something else.
No comments:
Post a Comment