Translation
The marathon is the only road running event held at the Olympics, with the men's version having been a part of the programme since the first modern Games in 1896. It took ninety years (!) for the women's event to be added.
Marathon running, as we know it today, was created and later refined through the Olympic competition. Based on the story/myth stemming from the battle of Marathon, in which Pheidippides supposedly ran from the town of Marathon to Athens to carry the message of Greek victory. In 1896 a distance of "around 40 kilometres" (25 miles) was ran with the gold medal going to a Greek water-carrier named Spyridon Louis. The winning time was 2 hours, 58 minutes and 50 seconds. How far and fast be have (be)come.
Early on, the distance varied per Olympic Games, with the distance between two points being key and as such going up or down a kilometre-and-a-bit from one Games to the next, though never below the 40 km mark. Since the 1924 Paris Olympics, the current distance has become the worldwide norm.
When looking at predictions for this event, most people will say they it is between Kenya and Ethiopia, as has been the case for probably the past decade. However, this is the Olympics and upsets are what sometimes great stories are made of. In Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the podium was Kenya, Bahrain and Ehtiopia while in Tokyo in 2021 Molly Seidel of the USA won the bronze. Go back a little further in time and you see Japan, Romania, China and Russia.
This year, the dark horse could very well come from the Netherlands. An absolute beast on the track, running at 1.500 metres, 5.000 and 10.000 and becoming European, World and/or Olympic champion at ALL of them, she made her marathon debut in London 2023, effectively coming out of nowhere to win that race. Later that year she also won the Chicago marathon in a European record time and the second fastest time ever ran by a woman.
The fun thing is that for these Olympics, she hasn't yet disclosed which distances she will be running. It is very unlikely she'll stick to just one event, having run three in Tokio. Her most recent forray into road running saw her finishing a "disappointing" fourth in the Tokyo marathon and people quickly saying she should focus all her attention on track events. However... Nobody tells Sifan Hassan what to do
so we could be in for a surprise - either way!
