KIPCHOGE ACTUALLY LOST IN BERLIN

Analysis paralysis

Precious Roy wrote:

The OP is right. Kipchoge should have stopped just short of the finish line, grabbed a microphone and done a live ad spot for Disney. "Announcer: Eliud Kipchoge, you are about to break the world record. What are you going to do next? Kipchoge: I am going to Euro Disney!!!!" (runs across finish line with seconds to spare to get WR). He could have made an extra $5 mil with something like that.

And scene.

But seriously, it is really sad that compared to just about every other sport, Kipchoge is comparably getting pennies in financial reward for his accomplishments. He should be very marketable. He is a fascinating guy who does a much better interview that 95% of the top sports figures and comes up with some amazing quotes on his twitter feed.

This is silly, but also a really good point. The world today financially rewards personalities who are NOT AT ALL like Kipchoge. A couple crazy stunts, a couple celebrity hookups, and a lot of self-promotion are the ticket to the top fame-wise.

It's just not a good match for Kipchoge, for distance runners in general, or honestly for most of us. The best comfort I take from this is the fact that the reason Kipchoge got to be the titan he is today is his hard work and focus, and had he been a lesser man, he would be a lesser runner.

Bubka and his WR wrote:

It's been done before wrote:

Didn't Sergey Bubka purposely break his own world records by the smallest of margins, in order to collect more bonus money? This probably wouldn't work for marathon runners as well as it worked for a pole vaulter, though.....

Yes, exactly. At the time, it was rather widely known within the sport the Bubka's real PR in the pole vault had been set during practice sessions, because he would intentionally improve his own public-facing WR by a small margin to collect another bonus.

Some suspect that Coe and Ovett had a kind of gentleman's agreement not to put the 1500 or Mile record out of sight in 80 and 81. Was rather crazy how they kept trading the WR between them, shaving fractions off, even recording the exact same time as each other in the very same week once. In the summer of 81, it seemed that both would be dominant for years to come, but of course it all came off the rails after that (literally in Ovett's case). Is odd that both recorded their best 1500 times when past their best (and I think their only attempts at WRs after 1981, unless you include Coe's 84 post LA Zurich run which quickly turned into a real race after 1 lap).

If not a tacit agreement, Andy Norman (the promoter and best friend of Ovett at the time) likely ensured that Coe never put the 1500/Mile out of sight by feeding him pacemakers (in particular James Robinson) who seemingly went out of their way to wreck his WR bids. Coe would have ran sub 3:29 in Stockholm 81 if not for Robinson going out in 1000m WR pace.

Sponsurs wrote:

Pretty sure being the world record holder will help with getting money from sponsors etc.

Get huge appearance fees at subsequent races