The Story Behind The MOST SHOCKING 2:15 Marathon In History - How Tigist Assefa went from 800 also-ran to 2:15 in the marathon

Good read! Interesting to note the second-placer at Adidas' Road to Records event in the HM behind Assefa was Rosemary Wanjiru who ran 2:18:00 in her debut to finish second in Berlin. Certainly the time of 1:07:28 wouldn't raise many eyebrows, but Wanjiru's PB was 1:05:34 ahead of the race and Assefa beat her by 8 seconds. With how strong the fields typically are since Adidas gets most of their best emerging 5K-HM athletes (they are loaded on the women's side) to participate, it's probably a notable victory even if the time doesn't pop.

Is 4th at Olympics an also ran? That makes wejo and you a never was

Yeah all the details besides what she did in training that got her to magically improve so fast from pretty unimpressive times. Obviously the weight may have been a huge factor but had she never run high mileage before as an 800 runner? This story is basically just laying out the timeline of the results we could already see from her world athletics profile and hardly has "all the details" 🙄

1:59 800 for women is not in the category of an "also ran." This is such a pathetic take. Rojo you're better than this.

4th in her heat. Did not advance.

"It had grown so bad that Assefa considered abandoning the sport entirely"

I think before they take the step of leaving the sport they have spent most of their life focusing on, a lot of people will try everything to salvage the situation, one last roll of the dice if you will, nothing to lose...

was she even being tested during the achilles injury if she wasn't competing?

By your standards, no. By her standards, yes.

rojo is saying 1.59 isn't comparable to her world class ability in long distance.

She was being tested more than D'Amato was while she was selling houses and running time trials during covid lockdown.

Assefa's reasons for not racing make sense to me. The marathon and half marathon she ran this year were basically training efforts for a bit of cash.

April 30, 2022 - PR in Half Marathon of 67:28

148 days later ...

September 25, 2022 - PR in Marathon of 2:15:37 with HM splits of 68:13 / 67:24.

Nobody, NOBODY, can run a marathon and hit half at only 1.1% slower than their PR and then run a half marathon PR for the second half.

If my numbers are correct, this is the equivalent of Joshua Cheptegei (world record PRs of 12:35.36/26:11.00) running a 10K with splits of 12:43.67 / 12:34.61 = 25:18.28.

Except the random half marathon at the adidas headquarters was just a marketing thing, not a real race. Maybe she was injured. Maybe it was a marathon pace training session. Maybe she had been sick. Maybe she just ran to win.

I understand you have never raced to win but she did just that in Austria when she ran her Half PR.

Bill Rodgers ran a 64:55 hm while being a 209:55 marathoner. Pretty close right? This stuff happens when you don't have a lot of races. I once set a mile PR in a 2mile race. The takeaway wasn't that I was some freak. It was that over previous 7 months puberty and training had made me 20s faster in the mile.

If she runs a a serious HM she will drop some 65min HM.

Maybe there was another simpler reason.

There's always a whole lot of perfectly "normal" reasons for stand-out performances that have made observers wonder how they did it. But it's never the most obvious reason in yet another totally dirty sport.

And it's just a coincidence that her miracle occurred after she saw that shady German doctor who uses various "secret sauces."

So why do you think she started doping a few months back? Why wasn't she doping when she was a 159 runner or a 67:30?