A South Tyrolean with Boston experience

Top achievements in sport are sometimes or even mostly incomprehensible to the famous “average consumer”, which is ultimately what makes them so attractive. In artistic gymnastics, for example, gravity is almost eliminated. People rotate in the air three times around their body's longitudinal axis and also around their width axis. They fly over the bar on the horizontal bar and grab it tightly again after a somersault in the air. On the uneven bars, artistic gymnasts demonstrate sheer acrobatics between a high and a lower bar. We are amazed, applauded and of course know full well that this is basically never possible for us.

Let's try a supposedly simpler approach to what world-class athletes show. Let's take a 100m dash. Can we still cover this distance in 17 seconds? Right off the bat, many will respond promptly and somewhat hastily: Of course. That's not a big deal. But don't be mistaken. It's quick and gets harder as you get older. If you have the opportunity to test it out at your sports club at home, you will be amazed. And they can confidently receive praise if they stay below this mark. You will then reach the finish line exhausted. I guarantee you that. And then imagine, after you've recovered a bit, that you now have to repeat this 422 times. Over and over again. 422 times 17 seconds over 100m. Without a break in between. Constantly on the go, so to speak. Then you would be able to run a marathon in about two hours, which the Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge achieved in Vienna in 2019. His time of 1:59.40 hours at the time does not count as a world record because it was achieved under laboratory conditions, as the saying goes. One vehicle created a slipstream and pacemakers constantly took turns. That didn't really sit well with the world association's competition watchdogs, which is why the official world record of 2:01:09 hours is in the books. Also installed by Kipchoge in Berlin in 2022.

The hunting season has begun Now it's hunting season again. The big spring marathons are on the program. Tokyo has already been there, Paris too and recently the Belgian Olympic bronze medalist Bashir Abdi ran close to his own European record in Rotterdam with a time of 2:03.47 hours. This results in a time of 2:50 minutes per kilometer. Many people can't do this on a bike. Especially not for two hours at a constant pace. One person who knows what it all feels like is the South Tyrolean Hermann Achmüller, who, as one of the highlights of his career (best time 2:18,56), completed all six major marathons in 2017 (Tokyo, London, New York, Berlin, Boston and Chicago) ran in one year, which in itself is an unimaginable achievement. Achmüller now regularly comments on some marathon races with me. During his active time as a competitive athlete, however, he was not yet able to enjoy the new materials in the shoe sector, which are of course helpful in the hunt for ever better results. When he ran under 2:20 hours, the soles of his shoes were still thin and flexible. Now they are rock hard because carbon plates are built into all running shoes for professionals and dedicated recreational runners. The new motto is: Only flying is more beautiful. The entire running style has changed as a result. With a carbon shoe you no longer have to curl your toes when rolling because the inflexible sole keeps the toe joints stiff. This saves energy and at the same time the responsive damping material returns much of its deformation forces to the runner. In a simple formula, this means: “With each step, a little less muscle effort has to be exerted in order to generate the same propulsion as before,” as biomechanics expert Gert-Peter Brüggemann explains.

Hermann Achmüller ran all six major marathons in 2017.

Four years ago, 86 percent of the podium places at the World Major Marathons were achieved with the new shoes. We are now at 2 percent. However, one should not believe that only technical developments in this area will push the limits further and further towards under two hours for men and soon under 10:42 hours for women. Above all, it is the still huge number of runners from Ethiopia and Kenya with their social drive for whom a marathon is simply their livelihood. Families and even entire villages live off the now good prize money. Young athletes have long since avoided competitions on the track and thrown themselves into the marathon scene right from the start at the age of twenty. And now it's also the case that runners from Europe train in Africa to learn from the best there. There is no end in sight to the boom on the 195 kilometers and XNUMX meters.

Ten years after the assassination attempt Of course, Boston is the focus these days. For Hermann Achmüller, this race also has a very special memory. Because exactly ten years ago, on April 14, 2013, two bombs were detonated on the left side of the finish line. Exactly four hours, nine minutes and 44 seconds after launch. Fortunately, Hermann had long since reached his destination by this point. Three spectators died at that time. A police officer was also killed in the hunt for the attackers, two Americans who had immigrated from Chechnya and become radicalized. 260 people were injured, many losing limbs, because the backpacks containing the explosive devices were left on the ground. Memorial plaques were placed at both locations where the bombs detonated. The horror is present and this time too, as always at such major events, there is a touch of fear. Fear and worry that hopefully nothing out of the ordinary will happen. If anything, I wouldn't mind a new course record, which stands at 2.03.02, set by Geoffrey Mutai two years ago. This time the king of the marathon is in Boston for the first time: Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya, who wants to become Olympic champion for the third time in a row next year in Paris, which is why he will probably only be seen in a marathon in Boston beforehand. Hermann Achmüller will definitely be watching this closely on the Eurosport microphone. I look forward to it.

About the author: Sigi Heinrich The award-winning sports journalist and TV commentator (including the German Television Prize, the Bavarian Sports Prize, the Biathlon Award and the World Sports Trophy) dedicates his column “Sigi's Peaks” to the entire diversity of sport and sometimes poaches in foreign regions . Sometimes with a smile and a wink, informative and serious or deliberately provocative. There should be something for everyone. After studying sports at the Technical University of Munich, Heinrich was editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung for ten years and has been at the microphone at Eurosport for 34 years.

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A South Tyrolean with Boston experience

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