Berlin Marathon Live Thread

NBC SN will broadcast the replay of this marathon on Monday. I think it's 7:30 PM ET. I want to watch this fo sho.

broken arrow wrote:

last 4 minutes of race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJIIuoWzXpo

Thanks for that. Wow, Bekele just floats away in full track stride and Kipsang can only watch, DEVASTATED!

da bern wrote:

Halves of 1:01;11 and 1:01:52. OUCH!

Fastest ever first half

rules technicality wrote:

Dead Nike Lunar Forever 2s wrote:

You're mate Jos was handing him his drinks, that's why he's back.

I just read through this whole thread. Someone mentioned pages ago that someone handed Bekele a drink? Isn't that aid and a rules violation? Honest question. I haven't seen the video. Just curious.

Rupp was personally handed hats in the Olympic marathon by a designated helper. Someone who only helped Rupp. Rupp keeps his Bronze. Bekele keeps his win. Nothing to see here. Move along.

da bern wrote:

Halves of 1:01;11 and 1:01:52. OUCH!

Yeah, but the last 2.2k were run at 2:48/km. Bekele could have beaten the world record today, if the pace has been consistent.

Bad Wigins wrote:

34:49 Hobby Jogger wrote:

I don't think anybody's arguing Bekele is marathon GOAT, but there is a better case than ever that he is 'distance' GOAT.

When he runs a sub 3:30 and sub 1:45 then you can call him better than Choge.

We're talking about the distance GOAT, has nothing to do with mid distance events

It would only be a violation if he received refreshments from a person not at an official refreshment station.

No violations occurred, fake Dr Katz.

fancy beers wrote:

Nah dude wrote:

Is bekele doing this clean?

Has to be asked

Ethiopian athletes should never have been allowed to compete internationally this year after the stack of meldonium positives and the Jama Aden fiasco. However you have one set of rules for Russia and another different set of rules for Ethiopia, Kenya, UK etc ....

Shame on race organizers who keep on inviting Ethiopian athletes to races: they are only further encouraging the PED problem.

You can go back playing your banjo on the front porch.

rjm33 wrote:

Update Bekele:

Let's all remember that this time of 2:03:03...is just Bekele at 80% to 90%.

I will let all the math experts here at LetsRun.com…do the math…to see what time Kenenisa Bekele will run at 100%.

OK?

(This is really going to be fun to watch.)

Oh yea.

These "percentages" don't mean jack shit.

This has been a public service announcement brought to you by People for the Ethical Treatment of Percentages.

That's to everyone for the round by round commentary.

Bekele just won the greatest marathon race in history. It was two heavyweight champions (well, ok, ultra-lightweight) standing toe to toe, blow to blow, until the champ put away the challenger with final flurry, something that he's done repeatedly to the best the world.

The GOAT.

Full replay here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtsIYDy8Z8s&sns=tw , not in English though

It was never that Bekele lacked the talent to do this, but that he has been a shell of his old self for much of the past six years. Here he was obviously able to see the results of a healthy training cycle. What other cycles I don't know, but Jos does. He's all about cycling and Healing Hans. Bekele is still the 5k/10k world record holder and now he gets within six seconds of setting another world record and is #2 all-time, not including the Boston result. Boston, of course, is much harder than Berlin on a normal day, but that was not a normal day with the wind blowing that hard. On any of the charts, Berlin is multiple minutes faster and among the fastest in the world. Kipsang also did something exceedingly rare, to stay at this level for this long in an age where the world record holder, Dennis Kimetto, could not hold form.

elmore345 wrote:

Also it says Bekeles time today was the 3rd fastest ever but its the second fastest no?

Myles Splitz wrote:

Mutai's win in Boston was 2.03.02 so Bekele is still 3rd on all time list

Downhill courses are aided, and therefore are not record eligible.

Bekele is 2nd all time. Mutai's best is 2:05? or so.

broken arrow wrote:

last 4 minutes of race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJIIuoWzXpo

Bekele could have busted that record in the last 400m.

2:04:15

He ran 2:05:02-3 I believe for New York

Rupp Hats wrote:

rules technicality wrote:

I just read through this whole thread. Someone mentioned pages ago that someone handed Bekele a drink? Isn't that aid and a rules violation? Honest question. I haven't seen the video. Just curious.

Rupp was personally handed hats in the Olympic marathon by a designated helper. Someone who only helped Rupp. Rupp keeps his Bronze. Bekele keeps his win. Nothing to see here. Move along.

No. Rupp's new hats were attached in advance to his bottle that he grabbed. Honest question and I haven't seen the video. Was Bekele handed bottles?

rules technicality wrote:

Rupp Hats wrote:

Rupp was personally handed hats in the Olympic marathon by a designated helper. Someone who only helped Rupp. Rupp keeps his Bronze. Bekele keeps his win. Nothing to see here. Move along.

No. Rupp's new hats were attached in advance to his bottle that he grabbed. Honest question and I haven't seen the video. Was Bekele handed bottles?

Well, technically no, he wasn't handed the water bottles. Instead, his team opted to swoop in by helicopter and pick Bekele up. No biggie, usually the airlift was for only about a half mile or so. Inside the helicopter Bekele grabbed his own water bottle. So, no foul.

If you didn't see the race you didn't miss much. Bekele would drop back from Kipsang every now and then so that when his chopper crew came down you could just barely see some wind effects on the screen as the cameras were focusing on Kipsang.

Anyway, no foul. Better find something else to talk about.

Anyone know who has the "unaided" marathon record? Like you have to carry your own drinks front the start?