Confusion: A Column By Len Johnson

As with many things, I couldn’t have put my reaction to some recent events better than Bob Dylan.

I’m mixed up and confused over who is the world’s best male marathoner after Rotterdam, Boston and London. I’m mixed-up and confused over what the hell was going through LaShawn Merritt’s mind _ if, indeed, anything was going through it at all _ when he purchased an over-the-counter ‘male enhancement product’ which contained the banned steroid precursor DHEA.

Perhaps it’s because my older son has just turned 21. As any parent can tell you, significant birthdays that tell you how old your children are getting, remind you with even greater urgency just how old you’re getting, too.

In any case, I’m confused. The one saving grace is that this confusion is not a-killin’ me and, seeing Bob Dylan wrote Mixed-Up Confusion almost 50 years ago, I’m pleased to see that, ultimately, it didn’t kill him either.

First, the marathons, then the drugs _ or, if you prefer, first the performances, then the performance-enhancers.

Some of us have always thought that, for all their obvious flaws (warm weather races; not all the top runners can make a national team; etc), championship marathons are the best determinant of who can claim to be the best marathoner in the world.

Others think it is world records _ the fastest marathoner in the world must be the best.

Still others believe the World Marathon Majors have brought clarity to a confusing situation _ that the runner who proves best over several performances in five of the world’s top marathons should be given the status of number one.

A lot of us hoped that would be the case. But as Bryan Green pointed out in his excellent column a couple of weeks back, it seems the WMM concept has not even taken in the world’s best marathons, much less produced a clear list of the world’s best marathoners.

On the men’s side, Rotterdam produced the fastest winning time with Patrick Makau’s 2:04:48, Boston saw a course record win in 2:05:52 by Robert K Cheruiyot ‘the younger’ (not to be confused _ as if! _ with three-time Boston winner Robert K Cheruiyot ‘the older’, whose record he broke), and Olympic and world bronze medallist Tsegaye Kebede won London in 2:05:19 beating, among others, the Olympic champion, the world champion and world silver medallist, and the world half-marathon record holder.

The women’s picture was scarely any clearer, with wins going to Aberu Kebede of Ethiopia (Rotterdam, 2:25:29), Teyiba Erkesso taking Boston in a relatively slow 2:26:11 and last year’s Chicago marathon winner Liliya Shobukova taking out London in 2:22:00, the year’s fastest to date (and with world champion Bai Xue seventh). For good measure, Atsede Bayisa won the Paris marathon in 2:22:04.

At least in the women’s case, the confusion is understandable with world record holder Paula Radcliffe off the scene injured (and now pregnant) and others such as Catherine Ndereba and Deena Kastor seemingly past their best.

But the men? Sammy Wanjiru would have been most people’s pick as best in the world, but he blotted his copybook with a ‘dnf’ in London, which may or may not have been influenced by a back injury and a long, arduous trip from Nairobi because of air travel chaos resulting from the Iceland volcano.

Kebede now assumes the mantle in some eyes, but he has finished a well-beaten third in both Beijing and Berlin, his seeming inhibition in championship races having to be balanced against his audacious wins in Fukuoka the past two years and now London.

I guess the answer to the question of who is best depends on the time-frame. Right now, you’d have to say it is Kebede, having beaten Berlin silver medallist Emmanuel Mutai, Olympic silver medallist and dual world champion Jaouad Gharib, world champion Abel Kirui, Wanjiru and world half-marathoner record holder Zersenay Tadese in London.

Over the past few years, however, you’d probably still have to say Wanjiru. And Haile Gebrselassie remains the fastest of them all, though he has faced strictly limited competition.

It seems we will have to live with the fascination of having so many claimants, and the frustration of having so little certainty, for some time yet.

Now for the LaShawn Merritt news which is one of the saddest developments both for the athlete and the sport since the bombshells of BALCO and Rashid Ramzi. As the chief executive of USATF, Doug Logan, pointed out in a damning, statement, Merritt has shamed both himself and teammates and made himself the butt of jokes for some time to come.

“Personally, I am disgusted by this entire episode,” Logan concluded.

Understandably so. With no knowledge of the details of Merritt’s case, it is hard to make judgements. But you do wonder how on earth an athlete who has been in four major US teams _ world juniors in 2004, world championships in 2007 and 2009 and Olympics in 2008 _ could be so naive as to use such a product without checking its contents.

That’s a matter which has implications both for Merritt, the USATF, and whichever combination of the national federation, the US Olympic Committee and the US Anti-Doping Agency administers the various athlete education programs.

 Let’s get back to Mixed-Up Confusion for the final, inconclusive word: