Hooker & Kirui: Course of Action

Has Sammy Wanjiru changed the conventional template for running a championship marathon?

The question must be asked after yesterday's world championship marathon emulated Wanjiru's audacious run to Olympic gold last year in Beijing with Abel Kirui and his Kenyan teammates taking control of the race at breakneck speed from start to finish.

Normally I don't like to talk about the people who are not at a championships, especially marathoners who opt for the big city, big money marathons over testing themselves against the world's best. But Steve Moneghetti declared Wanjiru's the greatest marathon run ever last August and now, 12 months later, Kirui has followed the same pattern to a world championships gold medal.

Statistically, the case is compelling. Kirui's winning time yesterday _ two hours six minutes 54 seconds _ is the second fastest men's championships time ever. The fastest is Wanjiru's 2:06:32 on the hot streets of Beijing.

Kirui broke the previous championship record set by Jaouad Gharib in Paris in 2003 by almost two minutes. Behind Kirui, three others broke two hours nine minutes _ silver medallist Emannuel Mutai of Kenya, bronze medallist Tsegay Kebede of Ethiopia and Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya. Six men _ two more than yesterday _ ran sub-2:10 in Paris 2003, but only two, Gharib and silver medallist Julio Rey of Spain, wen under 2:09.

Kirui, Mutai and Cheruiyout, helped by a second Ethiopian, Deriba Merga, carried the lion's share of the pacing load in Berlin. Merga was also a central figure for most of the Olympic marathon. How he must hate his teammate Kebede. In Beijing he passed Merga on the track to grab the bronze; here he came through him in the last 5k, though Merga was in such a bad way by then that he failed to finish.

Merga showed ahead at the first two 5k splits, but from then on it was either Kirui or Mutai, and from 30k on, Kirui.

It is exciting to think that two championships in a row have now brought a men's race run in exhilarating manner. No doubt we will see a return to conservatism sometime in the future, but for the moment let's just sit back and relish this mad, mad new world order.

Scott Westcott got burned following the early pace, but he helped Martin Dent, Andrew Letherby and Mark Tucker to pack together through 30k as Australia finished eighth of 15 teams in the marathon World Cup. With top 8s hard as ever to come by at the world champs, let's not overlook this one.

Like Abel Kirui, Steve Hooker was committed to a course of action which would lead either to death, or to glory. Like Kirui, his boldness was rewarded with a gold medal in the pole vault.

Leading in to Berlin, Hooker's ambition was to secure a world championships medal to go with his Olympic gold. But last Monday week, he suffered a grade one strain to a groin muscle. Then commenced a race against time to get fit.

It looked all over when Hooker qualified with one jump at 5.65 on Thursday. He crashed to the bag and could barely walk after that effort. The soreness settled, and he embarked on an audacious strategy of taking only one jump in the final in the hope that would suffice for a medal.

Hooker came in at 5.85. He all but cleared the height, just tickling the bar off as he went over. He was shattered but, to his surprise, found enough energy to take one more at the next height of 5.90. to a mighty roar, he cleared it and it stood up for gold.

Two jumps for a world championships gold medal. It has been done only once before by _ guess who? _ Sergey Bubka, in Rome in 1987.

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Len Johnson was The Melbourne Age athletics writer for over 20 years, covering five Olympics, 10 world championships and five Commonwealth Games. He is the author of The Landy Era, From Nowhere to the Top of the World, and a former national class distance runner (2.19.32 marathon) who trained with Chris Wardlaw and Robert de Castella.