Where Your Dreams Become
Reality
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Page 2 of the Week in Review (Sad State of American Women's Marathoning, Gate River Run, Takahashi and More) Nagoya Marathon: The End for Q-chan? and the State of Japanese Women's Marathoning vs American Women's Marathoning Naoko Takahashi (Q -chan),
the 2000 Olympic champ, despite running 70km some days in training,
couldn't even stay with the early slow pace and faded to 27th in 2:44. Sounds like she was overtrained to us. Qchan was a pioneer in women's running (the first under 2:20 which is not that rare now, but didn't occur until she did it in 2001). We hope she has one more good marathon in her. And one quick note on the Nagoya Marathon. It seemed like a ho-hum marathon in Japan with only a 2:25 winner. And then you realize 1 women in America has come close to 2:25 and she has a bronze medal around her neck. But the most impressive thing is 9 Japanese women broken 2:30 in the race. Yes, you read that correctly. And we take back our comment above about 1 women being close to 2:25 in the US, there is only 1 woman in the US actually running the Trials with a qualifying time under the 2:30 barrier and it's Deena. Says something about the current sad state of American women's marathon (Kara Goucher where are you?) that Deena will enter the Trials with a seed time 10 minutes faster than the next best woman. Truly sad. On a positive note, check out Boston's kick ass website for the women's trials. Andrew Carlson, Deena Kastor Win Gate River Run It was Carlson's first US title. He won the equalizer race as well. Thumbs Up for Gate River doing the Equalizer bonus correctly. The equalizer (where the women are given a head start and the men try and catch them) makes for great tv, but the problem is now some marathons are giving disproportionate bonuses (say $100,000) to the equalizer winner when otherwise one might get just $20,000 for winning their sex. We're all for entertainment but you don't need to make our sport a total circus by giving all the money to 1 athlete on some flimsy result anyway.
Two Contrasts: What is Great and What is Despicable About Our Simple Sport In contrast to that, you also had the case of the women of the Sarasota Marathon being DQ'd for cutting the course. That's a sickness in our minds. On the boards: Another Marathon Cheating Story Women's Winner of Sarasota Marathon DQd Marion Jones Goes To Prison There is little worse than a liar/cheat but a sanctimonious liar and cheat is particularly hard to deal with. Despite all of the signals pointing to her being a drug cheat, Jones denied it and denied it emphatically. Well now she's in jail. At least she's employed. This blog tells us Jones will make 13 cents an hour while in the slammer. An Article Worth Reading In Case You Missed It. |
Runner's World &
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