I believe mutai was wearing the adidas adizero feather.
I believe mutai was wearing the adidas adizero feather.
I remember when Frank Shorter would hold hands across the finish line with his teammates. What's the difference?
wejo wrote:
The first tiebreaker is head to head battles according to this:
http://worldmarathonmajors.com/US/series/article/23/If Wesley Korir won Chicago and Mutai was second in Berlin then they would both have 65 points. Korir would have won Boston this year beating Mutai who dropped out making him 1-0 head to head.
Does anyone else read it the same way I did?
I agree with you. The 2012 Boston Marathon was the only relevant WMM clash between the two, and Korir beat Mutai - unless they discount DNFs, the rule only talks about places. If DNFs are not counted at all (i.e. count like a non-start), Mutai and Korir have the same number of wins, and Mutai would win the tiebreaker due to his fastest average time (Korir won Boston 2012 in 2:12). Any sensible rule would include DNFs, of course, because otherwise you might see a runner drop out from third place on the last km. I always assumed DNFs were included, and so I thought Mutai had to win Berlin, not come second, in order to cement his WMM cheque. Apparently, Mutai and Kimetto thought the same.
Hugely impressive debut by Kimetto, let's not take anything away from that - just a shame he didn't have the chance to win the race.
For those that missed it, highlights from universal sports are posted already:
Why do you people (presumably Americans)give a crap about whether they raced "honestly". When there are enough Americans (unless you import guys like Lagat and Manzano or maybe Korir) to be players on the WMM stage, then the others (Kenyans) will do as they please. These two earned the right (based on existing rules) to run the race as they liked. If you have a problem with it then enter the race yourself and go out and beat them (Talking about wejo here), otherwise STFU.
Anyone who didn't see this as a possibility when the WMM format was arranged is really naive or just plain stupid.
I bet you could have conveyed your thoughts without the belligerent attitude. Am I right?
This is the marathon equivalent of allowing a sack so that Strahan gets the record out of "respect" or a team possibly losing a game so that their top scorer can get another basket for a record. This was bad for the sport. This is a sport with an identity crisis and a public that is interested in it every four years. Many (most) in the race itself don't even care - they are more interested in the guys who dress up like a caterpillar and run in 8 hours than an outstanding athlete from Kenya or Russia. And for that matter, it could be any runner from Kenya in some sense. The public shrugs its collective shoulder and says "some Kenyan won it."
I love the sport of marathoning, but the public watches (or doesn't watch) and is bored. To wait 2 hours for a footrace at the end and then to get this - well, that is a problem. This wasn't a stage in the Tour - it was for the win which you may never get again.
Maybe Mutai should be DQ'd from the race for not putting forth an honest effort like Maklouhfi in the 800m at the Olympics.
In all seriousness though, it obviously wasn't pre-planned that Kimmetto would be able to run a 2:04:16. It was his debut marathon and no one is cocky enough to think they for sure can run that fast on their debut. Perhaps once they got to the final mile or 2 they decided at that point "let Mutai win" but you can't predict from the start that you'll be able to finish low 2:04's without any problems. So if it was planned, it would have been more of an on the spot "midrace to end of the race plan" instead of a "pre planned thing"
everyone here is misinterpreting events big time. They both bonked -Mutai perhaps because of stomach cramps.
if you want winning to be the most important thing to the competitors, take the greatest motivator, money, out of the equation. yeah right, winning puts food on the table in dreams... how many of you have made a $500,000 decision? talk is cheap
There is no way to prove that the two were not completely spent - they both bent over after word and wobbled a bit.
Even if it was arranged, I couldn't care less; they earned it because they beat everyone else who showed up and had the opportunity to make that call. It's quite possible that this ends up being the better financial decision for both so more power to them.
All this purity of the sport talk is pointless - do you think any sporting organization cares a lick about those idealistic dreams - nope, they care about money and will gladly use athletes for the purpose of generating revenue. So good for these two.
conflict of interest wrote:
if you want winning to be the most important thing to the competitors, take the greatest motivator, money, out of the equation. yeah right, winning puts food on the table in dreams... how many of you have made a $500,000 decision? talk is cheap
????
I thought that only ONE of them was in the running for $500,000...thus the possibility that Mutai was given the win?
To me this is an example of cross country team mentality at its finest.
Heck, the other guy was maybe getting a percentage of that $500,000. This is a profession, and they can be strategic in how they want go about winning races. I think it is pretty cool when you are able to use team tactics on such a top level. That's how they bring home the money for everyone.
To me it is just good strategy. if this were a record for number of races won, and his teammate gave it to him out of respect, that would be one thing, but this was about money. There ain't no race if there aint something on the line. They made the most of it. just good team work
The Waterboy wrote:
Maybe Mutai should be DQ'd from the race for not putting forth an honest effort like Maklouhfi in the 800m at the Olympics.
In all seriousness though, it obviously wasn't pre-planned that Kimmetto would be able to run a 2:04:16. It was his debut marathon and no one is cocky enough to think they for sure can run that fast on their debut. Perhaps once they got to the final mile or 2 they decided at that point "let Mutai win" but you can't predict from the start that you'll be able to finish low 2:04's without any problems. So if it was planned, it would have been more of an on the spot "midrace to end of the race plan" instead of a "pre planned thing"
I agree completely.
Look, the first thing that needs to be said is that EVERYTHING we say here is speculation. The two men in that race are the only ones who can tell us the truth. Their initial statements are all we've got--unless they decide to change their story.
In the absence of evidence beyond that, all we've got is our educated guesses.
One way of looking at this is that Kimmetto did an incredibly sporting thing. I seem to remember a recent decathalon 1500 in which several runners plainly, incontestably threw the race so a certain Oregon Duck could win the race as the culmination of setting the world record. I don't remember any huge outcry about THAT.
In the world of martial arts, Zen buddhism, or the blues, there's an honorable role for the junior training partner, so to speak. He sweeps out the dojo. He drives the car. He helps the master shine. What he doesn't do is show up the master unless the master requests that he do that. One way of understanding this situation is that Kimmetto perfectly executed not just his own and Mutai's pre-race aspiration, but the PROMOTERS' pre-race hope for a WR pace. Kimmetto was brilliant at his assigned task. He and Mutai threw down, so to speak. And they paid a price for that. You've got two guys, two training buddies, suddenly realizing that they dont need to spew their last remaining gut in order to prove....what? The junior training partner doesn't show up his master unless the master says "Go!"
In this case, the master plainly did not give that command.
But of course there were two somewhat conflicted financial incentives. One was the difference between the winner's purse and the second-place finisher's purse. The other, much larger, incentive was the World Marathon Majors purse.
In exchange for the junior partner's fealty and respect, the master takes care of him. (Protege means "protected": the master's protege is the protected one.) I suspect that the two men traded words and that Mutai made clear that if the two men glided home without spewing that final gut AND if Mutai was the winner, the winner would compensate his junior partner for the differential in purses--and would do so out of the large purse for the WMM.
Truth is, Mutai and Kimmetto are behaving like gentlemen. To be sure, there's a hefty economic incentive to them behaving in this way, but I think it's kind of classy, the way they're proving to be rational economic actors AND gentlemen.
People at LR have a habit of underestimating the colonialist legacy among contemporary Kenyans. The legacy burns brightly, inspiringly, in the gentlemanly behavior of these two men. "Never complain, never explain." Wasn't that James Bond's creed?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
And I would sure like to see an enforcement policy against this type of thing(sarcasm), where some white western official is telling the poor kenyan, that he can't be running just for the money. they have to put on a show of running out of true love for the sport and glorious feeling of being a champion. ha. again, i will say, people compete because something is on the line. for many kenyans it is there livelihood, the money they take home to their poor families. it's some western privilege talk to be acting like these kenyans should be thinking of nothing other than winning a race for the sake of sport
Nobody should blame either of them for what they did today - Mutai earned his WMM title and cheque, and if Kimetto gets a slice of it, he earned that as well. If it was planned, it was a smart move.
However, that does not mean that the rule should not be changed in the future, for the sake of the sport, and I am sure that's all Wejo, myself and others are arguing for. There are many better ways to spend $500,000 on the sport.
The two(Kimetto and Mutai) are like a family. Kimetto owes Mutai for how far he has come. It is a very important part of our African culture and no Western powers will take that away. You simply cannot cut the hand that feeds(or fed) you! To show another example, Tariku Bekele finished behind Bekele in a number of races this year out of respect for his brother. If you watched those races, he was always checking his brother as if making sure he was ok. In the Olympics, he only raced to the bronze medal after realizing his brother wasn't going to challenge for the medals.
kudzurunner wrote:
The Waterboy wrote:Maybe Mutai should be DQ'd from the race for not putting forth an honest effort like Maklouhfi in the 800m at the Olympics.
In all seriousness though, it obviously wasn't pre-planned that Kimmetto would be able to run a 2:04:16. It was his debut marathon and no one is cocky enough to think they for sure can run that fast on their debut. Perhaps once they got to the final mile or 2 they decided at that point "let Mutai win" but you can't predict from the start that you'll be able to finish low 2:04's without any problems. So if it was planned, it would have been more of an on the spot "midrace to end of the race plan" instead of a "pre planned thing"
I agree completely.
Look, the first thing that needs to be said is that EVERYTHING we say here is speculation. The two men in that race are the only ones who can tell us the truth. Their initial statements are all we've got--unless they decide to change their story.
In the absence of evidence beyond that, all we've got is our educated guesses.
One way of looking at this is that Kimmetto did an incredibly sporting thing. I seem to remember a recent decathalon 1500 in which several runners plainly, incontestably threw the race so a certain Oregon Duck could win the race as the culmination of setting the world record. I don't remember any huge outcry about THAT.
In the world of martial arts, Zen buddhism, or the blues, there's an honorable role for the junior training partner, so to speak. He sweeps out the dojo. He drives the car. He helps the master shine. What he doesn't do is show up the master unless the master requests that he do that. One way of understanding this situation is that Kimmetto perfectly executed not just his own and Mutai's pre-race aspiration, but the PROMOTERS' pre-race hope for a WR pace. Kimmetto was brilliant at his assigned task. He and Mutai threw down, so to speak. And they paid a price for that. You've got two guys, two training buddies, suddenly realizing that they dont need to spew their last remaining gut in order to prove....what? The junior training partner doesn't show up his master unless the master says "Go!"
In this case, the master plainly did not give that command.
But of course there were two somewhat conflicted financial incentives. One was the difference between the winner's purse and the second-place finisher's purse. The other, much larger, incentive was the World Marathon Majors purse.
In exchange for the junior partner's fealty and respect, the master takes care of him. (Protege means "protected": the master's protege is the protected one.) I suspect that the two men traded words and that Mutai made clear that if the two men glided home without spewing that final gut AND if Mutai was the winner, the winner would compensate his junior partner for the differential in purses--and would do so out of the large purse for the WMM.
Truth is, Mutai and Kimmetto are behaving like gentlemen. To be sure, there's a hefty economic incentive to them behaving in this way, but I think it's kind of classy, the way they're proving to be rational economic actors AND gentlemen.
People at LR have a habit of underestimating the colonialist legacy among contemporary Kenyans. The legacy burns brightly, inspiringly, in the gentlemanly behavior of these two men. "Never complain, never explain." Wasn't that James Bond's creed?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Look, many on this board complain that running is not a more popular, more accessible spectator sport.
We are discussing this as spectators. There is money involved only because there are spectators to reach with advertising.
Some of the posters above seem to have the atittude that the two top finishers were deprived of their civil rights or somehow disrepected if interested spectators discuss the race as interested spectators.
We've all seen enough races, enough marathons, enough marathons with Kenyans and enough marathons with money on the line to be able to instantly know whether the body language or facial expression is consistent with an honest effort. Answer that honestly.
speck tater wrote:
Look, many on this board complain that running is not a more popular, more accessible spectator sport.
We are discussing this as spectators. There is money involved only because there are spectators to reach with advertising.
+ 1
If you're a professional athlete, your job is to compete. Refusing to compete is unsportsmanlike.
That includes competing against anyone who is not on your team. The Berlin marathon wasn't a team event, so a professional entrant has a duty to compete against ALL other runners and win if possible. Kimetto was in position to win easily and refused to try.
Those who decided to put half a million dollar at stake made a mistake with their rules. If it's all or nothing for a friend, colleague, why not take it all.
Mutai and Kimetto are on a team; they train together and have the same manager. If you're an athlete, your job is to compete. Mutai and Kimetto did compete as they crushed the field in Berlin together?
Professionalism adds that you have to earn a living and if $ 500,000 is going to be handed out to one athlete in your group, what will you do?
Take your share and keep the relationship that provided you the opportunity to earn a living, with more to come or act selfish, win a little prize money (because most of it is based on contracts), get sacked by your manager or put on hold in b-races?