[gernica]

Anyone watch the N.Y. marathon?
What a race.. .well done Paula great kudos for Britain

[bs44MhUW]

Congrats to her, seems like she wins everything!

Though this should be in a different forum.

[VINPELA]

November 5, 2007

On Familiar Turf, Radcliffe Shakes Off Rival

By JERÉ LONGMAN

Four miles into yesterday’s New York City Marathon, Paula Radcliffe of England and Gete Wami of Ethiopia were clear of the field and running into the medical unknown.

Could Radcliffe, the world record-holder, win after training through pregnancy before giving birth in January?

Could Wami somehow finish first in New York only 35 days after winning another major marathon in Berlin?

For 25 ½ miles, the race remained undecided. Wami hung on Radcliffe’s shoulder, refusing to take the lead and set the pace. Radcliffe tried several times to shake her opponent, gaining a slight advantage, only to see it quickly disappear.

In the final half-mile, along Central Park South, Wami finally drew even with, then slightly ahead of, Radcliffe, but this one surge was not enough. She did not have a sufficient kick left so soon after Berlin.

“I’ve been there so many times,” Radcliffe said. “I was determined it was my turf.”

Radcliffe answered with yet another move, and this time Wami could not answer. Running with her familiar pained expression, head bob and wide arm carriage, Radcliffe broke Wami’s determination and reached the finish line farther ahead of her Ethiopian challenger than at any other point in the 26.2-mile race, winning by 23 seconds in 2 hours 23 minutes 9 seconds.

Wami finished second in 2:23:32, but the consolation prize was actually richer for her than the winner’s purse. While Radcliffe took home $130,000 for first place, Wami won $500,000 as the victor in the World Marathon Majors series, a points contest held over the past two years for participants in the New York City, Boston, Chicago, London and Berlin marathons.

Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia, who was seeking to become the only female runner other than Norway’s Grete Waitz to win New York three years in a row, fell off the opening pace almost immediately and took third in 2:26:13, more than three minutes behind Radcliffe.

Radcliffe’s victory was far off her world record of 2:15:25, set in London in 2003, but she was not here to set a record on this difficult course lined with bridges and hills.

Instead, at 33, Radcliffe was here to resume her marathon career after an absence of two years and to bolster her reputation as the greatest female marathoner of all time.

She has now won seven of the eight marathons that she has started, the only smudge on her record being the 2004 Athens Olympics, which she did not finish.

If she can figure out how to race in hot, smoggy conditions, Radcliffe may be able to redeem herself at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. For now, it was enough to demonstrate that an elite runner can remain near the top of her career after training during and after pregnancy with little time off to recuperate.

Yesterday’s result also appeared to show that Radcliffe had recovered from complications of overuse after she resumed training, including a stress fracture of her sacrum, the triangular bone located at the base of her spine.

Radcliffe also overcame a regular, if not sporting, tactic of the Ethiopians. They often have been content in major international track races to let Radcliffe lead the entire way before passing her on the final lap. It has worked on the track, but not yesterday in the marathon.

“It’s different, but I wouldn’t criticize anyone’s race tactics,” Radcliffe said.
She did not have a specific race strategy, but no one else seemed to want to take the lead at the start, so Radcliffe eagerly set the pace. Prokopcuka had wanted to run the first half of the marathon in 1:12, but after several miles she knew the race would be much faster. Her hip bothered her, so she let Radcliffe go ahead.

Only Wami followed closely, and after four miles, their lead was 12 seconds. By Mile 6, it was 47 seconds. Radcliffe and Wami reached the halfway point in 1:10.47, and by then the small chase pack was more than two and a half minutes in the rear. Only two women had a chance to win.

On First Avenue, Radcliffe surged with mile splits of 5:16 and 5:17, but Wami remained with her. Radcliffe surged again, reeling off Mile 23 in 5:25, opening a six-second lead, yet Wami closed again. Another gap opened, then closed. Then, along Central Park South, Wami made her move, pulling to Radcliffe’s left, passing her by perhaps a stride.

“Respond, respond,” Radcliffe told herself. “Don’t panic.”

In 10 seconds, Radcliffe had covered Wami’s move and, by the final turn into Central Park at Columbus Circle, Wami had essentially conceded, the quick turnover and the desire having left her stride. Her stomach had begun to ache and she felt nauseous, and she could not answer.

Radcliffe had won this race in 2004 and she knew the course intimately. As recently as Thursday night, she had practiced running the final uphill stretch in Central Park. It is one thing to sprint past her on the track, quite another thing to beat her in a marathon.

“She was just too strong,” Wami said.

At the finish, Radcliffe hugged her daughter, Isla, and so did Wami. She had given birth to her own daughter, Eva, four years ago. Her return had been more complicated than Radcliffe’s, Wami said, adding that back and leg pains had bothered her for several years.

“I was impressed that Paula was able to train during her pregnancy,” Wami said, “and even more impressed that so soon after she was able to perform well and win.”




Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/sp...gewanted=print

[joeyCanada]

November 5, 2007

London Sequel Has Same Ending for Lel

By LYNN ZINSER
When the last of their competitors had fallen away and the course tucked into Central Park, Martin Lel of Kenya and Abderrahim Goumri of Morocco turned the New York City Marathon into Part 2 of a battle they began in the London Marathon last April.

Lel and Goumri ran side by side, close enough to clip elbows, for the final two miles of the race. By the 26-mile mark, both had decided it would come down to a sprint — just as it had in London — and Lel surged ahead through the final turns in the park. This time he won by 12 seconds. In London, the margin had been 3.

“When I have a chance to compare London and New York, I think it gives me some headache,” Lel said, laughing. “Maybe during the last sprint, sometimes you can lose, sometimes you can gain. So I said, ‘Let me try and see.’ It was hard.”

Lel, 29, who won in 2 hours 9 minutes 4 seconds for his second victory in this marathon, had enough of a kick in the final stretch to outlast Goumri, who is 31 and has now finished two marathons in his career and been second in both.

“That’s sport, one loser, one winner, it’s O.K.,” Goumri said. “But I think I did a good race, and I am happy to be here and compete here.”

Goumri said he might have been stronger at the end had this race not fallen so close to Ramadan, a monthlong stretch that ended Oct. 12, when Muslims fast during daylight hours. He said he could not train as hard as usual while fasting. Next year, he said, Ramadan is two weeks earlier.

“I have two weeks more and I hope I can again be fighting to be a champion of New York,” he said.

Hendrick Ramaala of South Africa, a champion here in 2004, finished third in 2:11:25.

For Lel, his second major marathon victory of the year was particularly satisfying. It is the fourth major title of his career, including winning in New York in 2003, when he beat the defending champion, his countryman Rodgers Rop. It was Lel’s only previous appearance here.

Lel said that victory made him realize he could compete with the top marathoners in big races. But he also wanted to come back to New York only when he thought he could win.

“Whenever I’m being invited to the New York City Marathon like today, I need to think twice because I know it’s a very tough race like these five major races,” he said. He was referring to the World Marathon Majors series, which also includes races in Boston, London, Berlin and Chicago.

Lel outlasted a strong field, but for the first time pacesetters were not allowed. Race organizers decided not to have them to give the race a championship feel — Olympic and world championships races never permit them — and the athletes would have to create the pace for themselves.

In this race, it meant a very slow start that created a lead pack that was 17 men deep at the halfway mark. Only when that pack headed over the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, about 16 miles into the race, did the pack start to stretch out.

“The race was kind of confusing,” Ramaala said. “It was from the start. I’m thinking a lot of guys didn’t want to take control. They were just happy to sit in the back. And then I started out just too slow.”

On the long stretch up First Avenue, Ramaala tried to shake things up with a series of spurts. That shook off many of the competitors, and by the end of the First Avenue stretch, the lead pack was down to five: Lel, Goumri, Ramaala, Rop and James Kwambai of Kenya. Rop fell away next, then Kwambai.

“All I kept thinking is, ‘Ramaala is so worth his money,’ ” said Mary Wittenberg, the race director and president of the New York Road Runners. “He is such a race maker.”

Ramaala stuck with the leaders until the 24th mile, when he was not strong enough to pick up the pace for the final miles.

That left the sprint to the finish to Lel and Goumri, and Lel recalled how difficult Goumri had been to shake in London.

“I can say he is a man who has been around this time,” Lel said. “Ramaala and Goumri really gave me a hard time. But to be a champion, you have to be a champion fighting with the man.”


Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company