Women's course record more vulnerable than the men's, says race commentator Hutchings
MUMBAI: It was just at the last edition of the Tata Mumbai Marathon, in 2020, where Derara Hurisa from Ethiopia, making his competitive debut in the 42. 2km distance, set a new course record, as he clinched victory in 2:08:09, eclipsing the previous best time of 2:08:35 clocked by Kenyan Gideon Kipketer in 2016.
You would have to go much further back, however, to find the last occasion the women's international elite field witnessed a new course record. Gideon may have seen his mark beaten, but a part of Mumbai Marathon history still belongs to the Kipketer family as the 2:24:33 setby his sister Valentine in 2013 still stands. With as many as six women in the international elite field for the 18th edition holding personal bests under Valentine's mark, could her 10-year ownership of the record finally come to an end on Sunday then? Renowned race commentator and former middle and long-distance runner Tim Hutchings believes there's a good chance of that happening, in a large part because of the increasing technological advancements the sport has seen recently.
"The course record is probably a little bit more vulnerable on the women's side than the men's," Hutchings, who has commentated on every edition of the Mumbai Marathon so far, told TOI on Saturday. "These women are all now training in new shoes with the better technology. And as months and months go by when they are training in these shoes and they are able to train harder and they recover better from the long runs, then their fitness accumulates.
"The carbon rods in this generation of shoes are making the athletes run faster. They fatigue less in the latter stages of races, the technology protects their legs more in training so they can train harder every day," Hutchings explained, saying he would have liked to see the sport's governing body World Athletics exert some control over the matter.
"I don't have a problem with the technology because technology in sport always carries on improving, but what I do wish is the world governing body, World Athletics,had controlled this more and actually more officially recognised this generation of shoes and therefore maybe put an asterisk beside all the times done in the old shoes or beside the times done in the new shoes.
"We are seeing world records, national records and personal bests smashed week in, week out year after year and in actual fact, they are intrinsically not running any better than the old times. It's just that the technology is enabling them to record faster times," he said.
The last international elite man to defend his title in Mumbai was Kenya's John Kelai in 2008. Does Hutchings fancy Hurisa's chances of matching Kelai's feat on Sunday? "I don't see why not. He's done the hard yards," said Hutchings, who finished fourth in the 5000m at the 1984 Olympics.
"The thing about these guys is they set the bar so high for themselves, even if they have a solid run rather than a fantastic run, they can still be competitive."
It remains to be seen if either Hurisa, his fellow Etihiopian Hayle Lemi, Kenya's Philemon Rono, running for the first time here, or any of the other elite men manage to set a new course record, but the plan is to have a serious crack at it, Hutchings revealed. "I was talking to one of the agents from the company who organise the elite field. He was saying the pacemakers are planning to go out at a very fast pace, well inside course record pace, so they are looking at 63 (minutes) 30 (secs) for the first half, and if they hit that right and there's a big pack, then there's a good chance somebody will survive the second half," he said.
