As the weather forecast predicted, it turned out to be way too warm for record performances in Berlin Marathon 2009 for most of the 40,923 runners from 122 countries.
Three hours before start Haile Gebrselassie was still optimistic, as always. He ate a breakfast consisting of white bread with jam, butter, tea and juice.
Haile clocked probably the fastest ever 30K with his spectacular 1:27:44 split (unofficial). After losing his last pacemaker (of seven) soon after this Geb slowed down for a 2:06:08 finish.
That's still fast, but nowhere near 2:02 that some folks were dreaming of.
Despite failing to break the WR, this was the fourth consecutive victory in Berlin for Haile. Not bad for a 36-year-old.
Geb said he had felt very tired in the end and conformed that the weather had been too hot, "No marathon weather".
Francis Kiprop of Kenya came second in 2:07:03 and Negari Terfa of Ethiopia was third in 2:07:41.
No comments:
Post a Comment