Are we going to just ignore the huge downhill at the start of the Vienna course?

How much adderall did you take before you posted this

Good post.

Welp... wrote:The reason they got ten seconds under pace so early

Actually, they didn't get 10 seconds under pace early on. They were on pace for 10 seconds under, which is different.

Doin Lines wrote:

How much adderall did you take before you posted this

None. Thanks for your thoughts.

another point wrote:

Actually, interesting idea. Hadn’t considered that.

As far as I'm concerned, the less this resembles a legitimate marathon performance, the better. If the course was several hundred meters short, with a net downhill of one or two hundred meters, better still.

Congratulations, you have spotted something that the huge budget Ineos operation didn't think of namely having a look at the rules. I wonder if they measured the course by having a man at the local pub do it to save a bit of cash?

Honestly, does it even matter?

This is not an IAAF recognized event, not a world record.

They could have had the whole stage downhill, they could have shortened the distance, all of that doesn't matter since it's not a marathon and this is not a world record.

EssosLindi wrote:

Honestly, does it even matter?

This is not an IAAF recognized event, not a world record.

They could have had the whole stage downhill, they could have shortened the distance, all of that doesn't matter since it's not a marathon and this is not a world record.

Kinda like the “World’s Fastest Marathon” they tried to stage a few weeks back?

of course. The whole race could have been downhill. Or there could have been a giant fan on a Tesla blowing a 13.1mph tailwind into Kipchoge. But it had to look "real enough". The masses would point out that it was too fake if we went with those variables. Too much aid. So instead they went with rotating pacers in perfect formation, gels and drink handoffs on bikes and the newest prototype of a carbon fibre shoe. And who knows what the drug testing situation was like. It was all about comparing it to Kipchoge's 2:01:39 PR and finally breaking that nice round 2:00 barrier. While they freely admitting it would not be a real WR, people would still be making this comparison to the actual WR for some twisted reason. This was about a step forward in humanity! Like landing on the moon or something. So it had to look like a legitimate progression in marathon performances! But was a 1:59:40 really a better performance than Kipchoge's actual world record run of 2:01:39 - or Bekele's solo comeback to 2:01:41? I think they are probably about on par. People weren't as excited about the 2:01:39 for some reason though.

EssosLindi wrote:

Honestly, does it even matter?

This is not an IAAF recognized event, not a world record.

They could have had the whole stage downhill, they could have shortened the distance, all of that doesn't matter since it's not a marathon and this is not a world record.