from the Washington Post…
BEIJING, Aug. 24 — They were perhaps 22 miles into a marathon, and an uncharacteristically searing sun beat down on the streets of Beijing. It was a time for water, and it didn’t matter if you were Kenyan, such as Samuel Kamau Wanjiru, or Ethiopian such as Deriba Merga. The pair had run stride for stride for several minutes, pushing a pace that seemed sure to slow down, driving each other to a deep thirst.
With that, Wanjiru and Merga came across a yellow water bottle. Merga took a deep sip, and then passed the bottle just ahead of him, handing it to Wanjiru, who took a drink as well. Wanjiru then sent the bottle back. And with that one swig, he basically said “See you later” to his competition, pulling away from a stunned Merga, blistering his way into isolation.
Thus, Wanjiru seized the final gold medal of the track and field competition with a little bit of Olympic spirit and a great deal of athletic superiority. His winning time of 2 hours 6 minutes 32 seconds destroyed a 24-year-old Olympic record, left runner-up Jaouad Gharib of Morocco nearly a minute behind and gave Kenya, with a deep and rich history in distance running, its first Olympic marathon gold.
The 21-year-old finished before a packed, thunderstick-thumping crowd at National Stadium — which had already begun preparations for Sunday night’s Closing Ceremonies — waving as he entered the building, the pace he set intact from front to back.
“I had to push the pace to tire the other runners,” Wanjiru said. “I had to push the pace because my body gets tired in the heat when I slow down.”
Therefore, he didn’t slow, early or late. The chief concerns for the 93 competitors who started appeared to be the sun and the temperature, nearing 80. When the event began at 7:30 a.m., with the backdrop of Tiananmen Square and a trip by Mao Zedong’s portrait at the Forbidden City, there was a blue sky. Beijing’s notorious smog, such a concern for marathoners in the run-up to these Games, was absent, part of an elaborate orchestration by the Chinese government to move industry outside the capital city and to limit the use of cars during the Olympics.
“It didn’t feel that bad out there,” said Michigan’s Dathan Ritzenhein, who was ninth, better than any other American. “It was hot. But to run 2:06:32 in this is incredible. I think that just shows he’s a very young guy, and he’s going to be an incredible marathoner.”
The incredible pace was set early, and with no smog to inhibit the runners, the flat, fast course was vulnerable to anyone who could bear the sun and heat. Merga, who eventually faded to fourth, helped establish that furious pace, covering the first five kilometers in under 15 minutes, the first 10 in under 30, reaching the halfway point in 1:02:34.
“I thought they were running way too hard,” said American Ryan Hall, who finished 10th. “Mentally, it’s tough to convince yourself that it’s possible for those guys to come back.”
They did not. By the 30-kilometer mark, Merga, Wanjiru and Gharib had separated themselves from everyone else, running in a tight pack.
“The conditions were very good, a little humid,” Wanjiru said. “I was able to pull away because I had enough power and speed to overcome it.”
Others couldn’t.
“I tried to keep up,” Ritzenhein said. But he said as early as the five-kilometer mark he realized what was happening. “I knew if I kept up that 2:06 pace, that I wouldn’t be finishing, probably.”
Because of that, the Americans finished without a medal in the marathon four years after Meb Keflezighi — born in Ethiopia and competing for the United States — and Deena Kastor left Athens with silver and bronze in the men’s and women’s races, respectively. Those were the first Olympic marathon medals for Americans since Joan Benoit won gold in 1984 in Los Angeles, seemingly pointing to a rebound for U.S. distance running.
Here, though, Kastor broke down because of a foot injury in the women’s marathon. The men went dry in the 10,000 meters, finishing no better than 13th (Galen Rupp) and the 5,000, a particularly disappointing development considering Bernard Lagat — who finished ninth — was a pre-race favorite. Only Shalane Flanagan managed an American distance medal, a bronze in the women’s 10,000 meters.
Still, the U.S. came away with those two top-10 finishes Sunday. Ritzenhein, 26, ran with 2004 gold medalist Stefano Baldini much of the way, finishing 5:27 behind Wanjiru. Next came Hall, who won the Olympic trials last November in New York and was another half minute back in 10th. Brian Sell, the final American, placed 22nd in 2:16:07.
“All in all,” Hall said, “it’s a pretty good showing for us.”
In the end, though, the day belonged to Wanjiru, who shattered the Olympic record of 2:09:21 set in 1984 by Portugal’s Carlos Lopes. Two strides after crossing the finish line, he fell to his knees and pressed his palms together. He crossed himself, then looked to the sky. And as the other runners trickled into the stadium, he wrapped a Kenyan flag around his shoulders — shielded from the sun, hydrated well enough, an Olympic champion.
“It feels good to make history here,” Wanjiru said. “It feels good to make history for Kenya and win the gold.”
