Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Breaking two hours is the Holy Grail
Gelant hopes Cape Town race will be a stepping-stone to even bigger things
“IT’S just impossible. I don’t believe I can ever do it,” Australian middle distance John Landy is reported to have said early in 1954 after failing again to break the four minute mile barrier, clocking his fifth successive 4 min 1 sec time.
Just 46 days after British athlete, Roger Bannister, had succeeded in lowering the world mile mark to below four minutes at the Iffley Road track in Oxford some months later, Landy finally achieved his elusive goal, improving Bannister’s 3:59.4 to 3:58.0.
Until Bannister succeeded, most people thought the fourminute mark was impossible to break. They thought the human body couldn’t physically go that fast – that it would collapse under the pressure. The current world record stands at 3:43,13.
Today’s “four minute mile” barrier equivalent is the 2 hour marathon. Just as the track mile captured the imagination of the sporting world in the 1950’s, so the marathon has done so in recent times. As elite athletes edge incrementally towards the 120 minute mark, the inevitable question has arisen: “is it humanly possible for an athlete to run faster than 2 hours for the 42.195 km distance?
And secondly, is it possible that an athlete might achieve that task, through legitimate means, within the next three years, while the progression of the marathon records suggests ELROY Gelant has already made a deep impression in South African track atheltics, and hopes to make an even bigger one when he makes his debut in the 42.2-kilometre distance at next week’s Sanlam Cape Town Marathon.
The South African 5 000m record-holder has tasted success over various distances and at age 31 has decided the time was right to make his foray into the marathon.
The seeds were planted that the 2 hour mark will not be bettered before 2030? Might it be achieved in Cape Town?
The recent attempt to stage a sub-2 hour marathon at the Monza Race Track in Italy, sponsored by a sports shoe company, narrowly failed when 2016 Olympic gold medallist, Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, ran 2:00:25. As impressive a performance as it was, the mark will not be officially recognised, due to a range of interventions, including the use of wind-breaking vehicles and pacers who joined the lapped run at different stages.
At the recent launch of the Sub2 Hour Marathon Project in Africa at the UCT Sports Science Institute, two local sports scientists, Professors Yannis Pitsiladis and Andrew Bosch, stated they believed that a legitimate “clean” sub-2 hour marathon is possible in the near future and have invested considerable resources to ensure that it happens.
This first of a two-part article on the Sub 2 hour project looks back at the 109 year history of the fastest men over the “standard marathon” distance of 42,195km.
The honour of the first athlete to officially hold the world record for the “standard marathon” is thus the 1908 Olympic marathon gold medallist, American Johnny Haynes who won in 2 hr 55 min 18 sec, a time even a moderately-talented Cape Town club athlete would have little difficulty in improving.
Remarkably it was only when Gelant ran as a pacemaker in last year’s race with former world half-marathon record holder Elana Meyer giving him a push.
“I felt it was the right time because I am in the prime of my running career…there were a few things that led to the decision,” Gelant said.
“I am also doing it with an eye on next year’s Commonwealth Games in Australia, and my goal is to win a medal there.
“I felt I could stand a good chance of winning a medal in 17 years later in 1925 that the tenth athlete to set an official world marathon record ran faster than 2 hrs 30 min – another American, Albert Michelsen, who ran 2:29:02 in Port Chester, USA. The top 28 finishers of last year’s Cape Town Marathon would have beaten Michelsen!
British athletes dominated the marathon in the 50s and 60s, with Jim Peters (2:17:39 in 1954) and Basil Heatley (2:13:55 in 1964) lowering the mark to respectable proportions. Before the latter, however, a barefoot Ethiopian athlete, Abebe Bikela, signalled the future rise of Africa, with a world record breaking 2:15:16 win in the Rome Olympics in 1960, and he was to regain the record at the 1964 games in Tokyo, retaining his Olympic title in 2:12:11.
Three years later Australia took over the marathon mantle for 17 years, with Derek Clayton (2:09:36 in 1967 and 2:08:33 in 1969) and Rob de Castella (2:08:18 in 1981) to the fore, before Europe regained possession. Britain’s Steve Jones the marathon.”
A 5 000m finalist at both the World Championships and the Olympic Games, Gelant may be better known for his abilities in the shorter track distance but he has shown immense potential in the long-distance events.
He finishes 13th at the 2014 World Half-Marathon Championships where he posted a personal best time of 61.10.
“The reason for making my debut at the Cape Town Marathon is because I am familiar with the local conditions, I improved the record to 2:08:05 in Chicago in 1984, with Portugal’s Carlos Lopes recording 2:07:12 in Rotterdam 1985.
Ethiopia’s Belayneh Dinsamo broke the 2:07 barrier in 1988 with a superb run in Rotterdam, winning in 2:06:50, a mark which stood for a decade before Brazilian Ronaldo da Costa ran 2:06:05 in Berlin in 1998.
But when Moroccan Khalid Khannouchi won the Chicago Marathon in 2:05:42 just two months before the new millennium, the African Marathon Renaissance was truly born. Five marathoners from the Great Rift Valley gradually lowered the mark to its current 2:02:57 over the past 18 years.
Paul Tergat (2:04:55 in 2003), Haile Gebrselassie (2:03:59 in 2008), Patrick Makau (2:03:38 in 2011), Wilson Kipsang (2:03:23 in 2013) and Dennis Kimetto (2:02:57 in 2014), all Kenyans apart from Ethiopian Gebrselassie, have all turned to Berlin, where the course and conditions in September are near perfect, to run world marathon best-ever times. know the weather, the running surfaces, and the preparations,” Gelant said.
“You also have the support on the side of the road so while it is also not too fast allowing me to make a decent debut.”
Last year Ethiopia’s Asefa Mengstu Negewo broke the long-standing South African all-comers record posting a winning time of 2: 08: 42 to shave more than a minute off David Tsebe’s time of 2:09:50 set in Port Elizabeth in 1990.
Negewo is set to line up once again while Kenya’s Laban Mutai, who boasts a personal best of 2.08:01 he set in Koln, Germany has also been added to the field.
Gelant will take a measured approach when he lines up in his maiden marathon.
“I set myself a target of doing the marathon in 2:10 which I think would be a good pace to start with and use as a stepping stone and see where I end up,” Gelant said.
“Then hopefully next year after the Commonwealth Games I can go for bigger international marathons Cape Town works out.
“I’ve been quite patient and now that I have turned 31 this year I thought I am strong enough now to take on the marathon.”
The former World Student Games bronze medallist spent some time gaining valuable experience at an altitude training camp in Kenya where he got to rub shoulders with some of the best long-distance runners.
Gelant said the experience had taught him about deter- if mination and discipline from the Kenyan athletes.
“There are definitely some nerves since I started preparing for the marathon but what has been good is that I have kept my training similar to what I have always done,” Gelant said.
“I’ve focused a bit more on my long runs where I have incrementally added kilometre mileage every two weeks.
“Every time I have increased the distance it has added to the excitement.”