STATISTICAL SPOTLIGHT - FUKUOKA MARATHON
By David Monti with Ken Nakamura
(c) 2008 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Used with permission.
The
Fukuoka International Open Marathon Championships will be held Sunday
in Japan, and is likely to have an impact on the 2008 world marathon
list, if history is any guide. The 61 previous editions of this
invitation-only race have reliably produced fast times, most years.
Beijing
Olympic Marathon champion Samuel Wanjiru produced the fastest-ever
performance at Fukuoka when he made his marathon debut there one year
ago. The Japan-based Kenyan clocked 2:06:39, one of four sub-2:07
life-to-date performances recorded at Fukuoka. Moreover, the 2:08
barrier has been broken in Fukuoka 13 times, while 30 performances
sub-2:09 have been recorded here.
Fukuoka ranks seventh amongst
all the world's marathons in producing fast times throughout its
history. The real,-Berlin Marathon is #1 with the average of the
top-10 performances there equaling 2:05:34. London is second
(2:05:58), and Chicago is third (2:06:12). The top-10 fastest marks at
Fukuoka average 2:07:13.
Kenyan Felix Limo, who is running
Fukuoka this year, ranks fourth in world history based on the average
of his top-5 performances. Limo has run 2:06:14 in Rotterdam, 2004;
2:06:39 in London, 2006; 2:06:42 in Amsterdam, 2003; 2:06:44 in Berlin,
2004; and 2:07:02 in Chicago in 2005. That gives him a five-race
average of 2:06:40, surpassed only by Haile Gebrselassie (2:05:07),
Khalid Khannouchi (2:06:16), and Paul Tergat (2:06:37).
A look
at Fukuoka's history reveals that a more cautious approach in the early
kilometers is the key to running fast time. Japan's Takeyuki Nakayama
ran the most aggressively of any athlete in the history of the race
when he won in 1987. He blasted through 5 km in 14:35 and 10 km in
29:05. He still holds the fastest-ever split for this race through 35
km (1:44:25), but in the next 5 km the wheels fell off. He slowed to
16:20 for that segment, and finished in 2:08:18. Wanjiru went through
10 km almost a minute slower than Nakayama in 30:03, but he ran
wonderfully consistent 5 km splits of about 15 minutes, tightening the
screws from 30 km to 35 km (14:44), and breaking Atsushi Fujita's
previous course record of 2:06:51 set in 2000.
It is one of the
greatest honors in Japanese sport for a home country athlete to win
Fukuoka. That's only happened three time in the last ten years, and
five times in the last 20, with Tsuyoshi Ogata the last man to do it in
2004.
There's a complete list of winners for your reference
on the website of the Association of Road Racing Statisticians at this
link: http://www.arrs.net/HP_FukMa.htm.