Olympic Endurance Events

I am watching the Men’s Olympic Marathon: it is 1:26:20 at mile 18; that is 48:10 per 10 mile segment. The early blistering pace is starting to tell; there are two Kenyans and an Ethiopian and three just behind. The Americans have fallen way, way back.

What I’ll do is collect some videos of the various events of interest to endurance athletes and post them here.

Update: Kenya will win the Olympic marathon. Samuel Wansiru of Kenya wins easily in 2:06:32 on a warm day. Jaouad GHARIB of Morocco wins silver in 2:07:16 two more from Ethiopia will fight it out for bronze; they are just entering the track at this moment: it should be exciting.

It is about a 30 meter gap; they have switched places Tsegay KEBEDE wins bronze in 2:10:00 and 4′th place Derbia MERGA 2:10:21

The top two Americans Ritzenheim and Hall: 9′th and 10′th and should finish in the 2:12 range.

Ritzenheim finishes in 2:11:59, Hall in 2:12:33.

Partial results with 5K splits:

1 2263 WANSIRU Samuel Kamau KenyaKenya Nov 10 1986 2:06:32
2 2391 GHARIB Jaouad MoroccoMorocco May 22 1972 2:07:16 0:44
3 1651 KEBEDE Tsegay EthiopiaEthiopia Jan 15 1987 2:10:00 3:28
4 1650 MERGA Deriba EthiopiaEthiopia Oct 26 1980 2:10:21 3:49
5 2261 LEL Martin KenyaKenya Oct 28 1978 2:10:24 3:52
6 2926 ROTHLIN Viktor SwitzerlandSwitzerland Oct 14 1974 2:10:35 4:03
7 1652 ASFAW Gashaw EthiopiaEthiopia Sep 25 1978 2:10:52 4:20
8 1575 ASMEROM Yared EritreaEritrea Feb 04 1980 2:11:11 4:39
9 3224 RITZENHEIN Dathan United StatesUnited States Dec 30 1982 2:11:59 5:27
10 3174 HALL Ryan United StatesUnited States Oct 14 1982 2:12:33 6:01
11 3318 FOKORONI Mike ZimbabweZimbabwe Jan 10 1977 2:13:17 6:45 PB
12 2085 BALDINI Stefano ItalyItaly May 25 1971 2:13:25 6:53
13 2203 OGATA Tsuyoshi JapanJapan May 11 1973 2:13:26 6:54 SB
14 2832 ANDREEV Grigoriy Russian Fed.Russian Fed. Jan 07 1976 2:13:33 7:01
15 2125 PERTILE Ruggero ItalyItaly Aug 08 1974 2:13:39 7:07
16 1608 MARTINEZ Jose Manuel SpainSpain Oct 22 1971 2:14:00 7:28
17 1690 KIRWA Francis FinlandFinland Nov 28 1974 2:14:22 7:50
18 2310 LEE Myongseung KoreaKorea Aug 14 1979 2:14:37 8:05
19 1686 HOLMEN Janne FinlandFinland Sep 26 1977 2:14:44 8:12
20 2394 GOUMRI Abderrahim MoroccoMorocco May 21 1976 2:15:00 8:28
21 2834 SOKOLOV Alexey Russian Fed.Russian Fed. Nov 14 1979 2:15:57 9:25
22 3231 SELL Brian United StatesUnited States Apr 11 1978 2:16:07 9:35

Swimming

A friend (and political adversary) sent me this article:

By her own admission, Katie Spotz was no swimming star at her high school in Mentor, Ohio. In fact, she was one of the worst on the team.

“I’m slow,” she said. “But endurance I can do.”

Steadily, incredibly, Ms. Spotz, 21, demonstrated those endurance abilities by swimming the entire length of the Allegheny River, finishing at the Point yesterday just before noon. She is believed to be the first person to swim the whole river.

Ms. Spotz was greeted by cheering friends and family as she approached Point State Park, followed by her safety kayaker, James Hendershott. A few feet from solid ground by the fountain, she popped her head out of the water and flipped off her goggles with a wide grin.

She then climbed onto a River Rescue boat, ending a 352-mile journey that began July 22 at the river’s origin in Potter County.

“I can’t believe I’m here,” she said, her black wet suit dripping.

Neither can her parents.

Home after graduating from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, N.C., Ms. Spotz floated the idea of swimming the Allegheny to her mother a couple of months ago.

Mary Spotz responded, “No you aren’t, Katie.”

Then rubber flippers and other distance swimming paraphernalia arrived at the house, purchased on eBay, and Mrs. Spotz knew her daughter was serious.

“Maybe she’ll find a job,” the mother said she hoped, but to no avail.

Eventually, Mary Spotz came to accept her daughter’s latest adventure, heartened by the fact that it was for a good cause.

Katie, who started running marathons at 18, once biked across America and has competed in a half-ironman triathlon, is using the trip to raise money for the Blue Planet Run Foundation, which provides poor communities access to clean drinking water. Her Web site, www.swimforwater.com, links to a donation page for Blue Planet, a nonprofit group formed in 2004 that often combines endurance sports with fund raising.

Her swim blog can be found here.

Olympic 10K swim: Mark Warkentin (USA, 8′th place) race analysis.

Read the whole thing. Here are a couple of paragraphs:

Nothing of significance happened in the first lap of the race and all I really remember was trying to establish a good drafting position, which I believe I did. The race was physical from the start with a lot of jostling for position within the pack for the entire first lap. At the start of the second lap I was the unfortunate recipient of an elbow to my shoulder blade that, now 2 days later, still hurts. I don’t know who it was that got me, but I must have made an aggressive retaliation move because I was given a Yellow Card a few moments later. The race official blew his whistle at me, held up a yellow flag and produced a board with #18, my number, written on it. I was a bit confused about what I had done to get a Yellow Card, but there really isn’t any time to get an explanation from the official. The only thing you can really do is adjust your race strategy accordingly, knowing that a second infraction will result in a disqualification from the race.

At first I didn’t think that the Yellow Card would really affect my race strategy. Every 10K swimmer believes that he swims a docile race, but the reality is that there are times when the situation demands that you get a bit physical. A Yellow Card makes the athlete more apprehensive at the critical moments, and there was one critical moment where I had to back down when I normally would have stood firm.

[...]

I scrapped my way through the last very painful 800 meters, and the closer I got the more it became apparent that I wasn’t going to win a medal. I won a small battle by out-touching a few of the other competitors at the finish line, but my 8th place finish was about 20 seconds behind the winner. I put my hand on the touchpad 1 hour 52 minutes and 13 seconds after the start of the race.

There is much more there, including stuff that helps one understand what goes on toward the front of the pack in such a race.

Video list (my preferences)
Note: for some of these, you might need to “cut and paste” the address to see the video.

5k run (women)

http://www.ethiotube.net/video/454/Beijing-2008–5K-Women

5K run men

http://www.ethiotube.net/video/455/Beijing-2008–5K-Men

10K run (men)

http://www.ethiotube.net/video/435/Beijing-2008–10K-Men

10K run (women)

http://www.ethiotube.net/video/430/Beijing-2008–10K-Women

1500 meter run men

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=0819_SD_ATM_HL_L0977

3000 steeplechase (men)

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=0818_HD_ATM_HL_L0900

50K racewalk

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=WLKH-BJ-SD27-082208-072002

men’s 10K swim

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=SW2H-BJ-SD28-082108-085504

women’s 10K swim

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=SW2H-BJ-SD28-082008-085503

women’s 20K walk

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=WLKH-BJ-SD27-082108-085502

men’s 20K walk

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=WLKH-BJ-SD35-081608-085003

men’s 1500 meter swim

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=0817_HD_SWB_HL_L1679