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Moses Mosop of Kenya cruised to victory in the 34th Chicago Marathon on Sunday, surging away from an elite field with seven miles to go and setting a course record of two hours five minutes and 37 seconds.

Liliya Shobukhova of Russia won the women's competition for the third straight year in two hours eighteen minutes and 20 seconds, beating the second place women's finisher by nearly four minutes. Both winners' times were unofficial.

Mosop, who had the second fastest marathon time on record in losing the Boston Marathon by 4 seconds earlier this year, quickly countered a breakaway by countryman Wesley Korir after the 19 mile mark and never looked back in breaking the course record set two years ago.

Korir finished 38 seconds behind Mosop in second place. Bernard Kipyego of Kenya was third.

In a post-race interview, Mosop said he had been prepared to challenge for a course record, but not the world record because a leg injury had limited his training.

"I'm very happy about my job today," Mosop said in the interview on NBC television, which carried the race.

The Chicago marathon course is considered ideal for record-setting performances when conditions are right. The route cuts through two dozen ethnic neighborhoods between its start and finish in Grant Park adjacent to downtown.

Mosop had the second fastest marathon in history in Boston at 2:03:06, just behind Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya who set the marathon record at 2:03:02.

Partly because Boston is a point-to-point course and there was a strong tailwind, those times were not recognized as world records.

The current world record in the marathon is 2:03:38, set September 25 in Berlin by Kenya's Patrick Makau.

Shobukhova had the second fastest time ever for a woman in the Chicago Marathon behind Paula Radcliffe of Great Britain who set a then-world record of 2:17:18 in 2002.

Ethiopian track star Ejegayehu Dibaba, who was making her marathon debut, ran alongside Shobukhova until about the 15 mile mark before slipping off the pace. Dibaba finished second in 2:22:09. Kayoko Fukishi of Japan was third.

Leading up to this year's race, organizers warned the majority of the participants not to push themselves too hard with temperatures forecast to rise to near 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 C) by afternoon.

Temperatures on the Chicago lakefront were in the mid-60s for the first two hours of the race but were expected to rise at least 10 degrees over the next two hours as the bulk of the runners work their way through the city's neighborhoods.

Some 45,000 runners were registered for the race with more than 100 countries represented. Race organizers expected some 1.7 million spectators to watch along the route.

In 2007, temperatures during the marathon climbed to 90 degrees F (32 C) with high humidity. One runner collapsed and died, some 300 were taken to hospital suffering from heat-related illness and the race was halted early.

Some runners said before the race they would wear black arm bands to protest job cuts at Bank of America, the sponsor of the marathon which received billions of dollars in government bailout money during the financial crisis.

 
Re-produced with permission, Reuters.

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Kenyans Moses Mosop and Geoffrey Mutai enter as the favorites to win the men's division of the Chicago Marathon, which is expected to attract a field of about 37,000 runners on Sunday.

Mutai captured this year's Boston Marathon in a time of 2 hours, 3 minutes, 2 seconds, barely ahead of Mosop (2:03:06).

There hasn't been an American champion in a major marathon race since Meb Keflezeghi captured the 2009 New York City Marathon. The last American to win the Chicago Marathon was Khalid Khannouchi in 2002. Since then, the men's division has been won by a Kenyan every year.

Samuel Wanjiru won the title the previous two years, but he died after falling off a balcony at his home on May 15 this year. He set the Chicago Marathon record in 2009 with a time of 2:05:41.

The top American male contender this year is Ryan Hall, who will turn 29 on October 14. Hall won the marathon at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials and came in 10th in the Olympic marathon in Beijing. He was fourth in this year's Boston Marathon (2:04:58).

Some of the other top contenders in the field are 21-year-old Ethiopian Bazu Worku, 2008 winner Evans Cheruiyot, Bernard Kipyego of Kenya, and Marlson Gomes dos Santos, who won the New York City Marathon twice (2006, 2008). Ethiopia's Bekana Daba and Kenya's Wesley Korir are also to be watched.

On the women's side, Russian Liliya Shobukhova aims to win the race for a third straight year. She finished in a time of 2:25:56 in 2010, bettering her 2009 result by 4 1/2 minutes.

The last American woman to capture this race was Deena Kastor in 2005. There really isn't much of a chance for an U.S. woman to win this year. Jeannette Faber and Leah Thorvilson, two of the best Americans, have a personal best time of 2:39:41 and 2:37:55, respectively.

Challenging Shobukhova will be Ethiopian Askale Tafa, Russians Inga Abitova and Maria Konovalova, and France's Christelle Daunay.

There should be no problem weather-wise, as temperatures for the 8:30 a.m. (et) start are expected to be around 15 degrees celcius with clear conditions. The course is fast and flat and home to four world records. The only slight incline is in the last mile on Roosevelt Road.

The winner of the men's and women's divisions will pocket $100,000.

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By Bryan Green

There's an old Irish blessing that starts: "May the road rise to meet you; May the wind be always at your back."  Must have been some blessing the Boston Marathon received this year...

I'm not sure where the tailwind at the Boston Marathon this weekend will rank amongst history's most influential winds, but it's got to be up there after today's performances.  Was it as influential as the typhoon that wiped out the Mongol advance on Japan in 1281, creating the word "kamikaze" or "Divine Wind".  No, probably not.  Words don't get much cooler than kamikaze.  But it's at least on par with the wind that caused this for sheer "Wait, is this real?  This can't be real, can it?"

I have no idea how much Boston's Divine Tailwind was worth time-wise, but I do know it's changed the Boston Marathon, and more than a few lives, for all-time.  Here are the top 5 things this tailwind brought with it as it passed through Boston:

5. Great debates

How much time was that tailwind worth to Geoffrey Mutai (2:03:02) and Moses Mosop (2:03:06)?  Two minutes?  Three?  They obviously ran an all-time great race, but where *should* it rank amongst the all-time list?  And what kind of shape is Ryan Hall really in?  He just ran the 15th fastest performance ever, and yet he couldn't run that pace for half marathon just a few weeks ago.  

There won't ever again be a discussion of great marathons that doesn't include Boston 2011.  Think about it: how fast would Haile Gebrselassie ca Berlin 2008 have run today?  Or Sammy Wanjiru ca Beijing 2008?  

4.  Skewed expectations

Up through two years ago, the goal at Boston was to save your legs in the first half, power home through the second half, and try to run a mid-2:08, which was usually enough for victory.  Then last year Robert K Cheruiyot blasted a 2:05:52 and the consensus was it was one of the great performances of all-time.  A time that fast was unthinkable on Boston's course.

Today two guys ran almost three minutes faster.  Record-eligible times or no, that is insane.  The typical winner of the Boston Marathon would have finished 10th today, and still had a mile to go when Geoffrey Mutai crossed the line.

I wonder what this does to expectations for the Boston course now.  How disappointed are we going to be when next year's winner runs *just* 2:06:45?  Make no mistake, the Boston course is still slow.  We're due to revert back closer to "normal" next year.

3.  Untouchable records

We know these performances aren't eligible for official records.  I'll get into that more below.  Here I want to talk about the records that I think should count.  Here's three:

Boston Course Record: This one has to be official.  The course is the course, regardless of the conditions.  And the chances of anyone beating this record are now somewhere on the none side of slim.

Debut Marathon Record: Apparently, this was Moses Mosop's debut marathon.  He ran 2:03:06.  Umm...I'm going to go ahead and call that one a lock.  And no, the tailwind does not matter in this case.  He raced the full distance for the first time and that was his time.  

Fastest 2nd Place Finish:  Moses Mosop gets another record.  Before this race, the fastest 2nd place time ever was James Kwambai's 2:04:26 from Rotterdam in 2009 (full list here).  And that was insane.  Mosop's performance is not only 1:20 faster than that, it is 53 seconds faster than Haile Gebrselassie ever ran!  And he still lost!


2.  Vindication

If there's one person whose erratic behavior over the past few months has just been vindicated, it's Ryan Hall.  Since last Boston, he's done the following: won at Bix 7 (32:55); 13th at Philadelphia Half (63:56); DNS at Chicago Marathon; left his longtime coach Terrence Mahon to train himself; 2nd at Houston Half (62:20); 21st at NYC Half (63:53); and of course 4th at Boston Marathon in a smokin' 2:04:58.

He's both America's greatest road-racer and it's biggest enigma (with apologies to Webb).  He looked like a runner who had lost his way and was letting his insecurities lead him farther off the path he needed to be on.  The vast majority of his followers (myself included) questioned his ability to train himself after leaving Mahon and wondered if he wasn't setting himself up for a stretch of races where he underperformed relative to his potential.

And then an insane Boston tailwind happened and, whether those doubts should be wiped away or not, the majority of people will now assume he's made the right choices.  And fair enough.  Regardless of what the 2:04:58 *really* converts to, it's a smokin' fast time and a sign that things are far from a disaster for our top marathoner. 

1.  The Mother of All Asterisks

I've always been fascinated with asterisks in sports.  For most sports, asterisks are hypothetical.  They are something fans use to discount a performance, like Roger Maris's 61 home runs (the "he played 8 more games than Ruth" asterisk) or the Lakers victory over the Kings in Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Playoffs (the "Tim Donaghy was ref for that game" asterisk).  When you look at the actual record books, there are no asterisks.  The asterisks just exist in our collective memory.

Track and road running are different.  We put that asterisk on a performance that doesn't meet our criteria.  Run a 100m race with a 2.1 mps tailwind: asterisk.  Run a race on a course that happens to be net downhill: asterisk.  We slap that sucker on anything that even hints at being "unofficial" or, worse, "assisted".

In many cases, it doesn't matter.  Every Boston marathon performance since we made the rule about no net downhill point-to-point courses being eligible has had an asterisk.  It didn't matter since the course was so slow.  But uh oh.  Now the two fastest times ever run were just put up on the Boston course.  The very same course that was always too slow to matter if it had an asterisk.  Which means now that asterisk is going to stick out like a sore thumb.  The fastest marathon ever run is officially NOT the world record. Check out the asterisk.



Honestly, that's probably as it should be.  It's exactly the type of race that the asterisk was designed for.  Without it, my daughter would grow up and look at Desiree Davila's time and not understand how freakishly unusual the conditions were.  In track and road running, times are just too important to view them without context, especially the outliers.  So gimme the asterisk, officially.  And make it a big one.  Big enough to represent the Divine Boston Tailwind and the most amazing marathon ever run.

 

Footage provided by adidas and reproduced with permission. Published Wednesday September 23, 2009