Stats to Impress Your Friends
By Scott Bush
The BMW Berlin Marathon has proven itself as the world’s fastest marathon time after time over the past decade. Sunday’s race not only will see American Shalane Flanagan go after the U.S. marathon record, but Dennis Kimetto and Emmanuel Mutai could very well go after the men’s marathon world record.
Here are ten quick facts to know before Berlin 2014:
- The last five men’s marathon world records were all set in Berlin
- Berlin has held the men’s marathon record since 2003, when Paul Tergat (KEN) ran 2:04:55
- Naoko Takahashi (JPN) became the first woman to crack the 2:20 barrier when she won Berlin in 2001 with her 2:19:46 performance
- Nine men have run sub-2:05 in Berlin – three have run sub-2:04
- The Berlin Marathon has the fastest men’s top 10 average of any marathon in the world – 2:04:18
- The fastest non-aided marathon debut in history came when Dennis Kimetto ran 2:04:16 in 2012
- Five women have run sub-2:20 – only London has more (8)
- The three fastest men in this year’s field (Kimetto, Mutai and Kebede) PRs average 2:04:05
- The three fastest women in this year’s field (Tadese, Tsegaye, Flanagan) PRs average 2:21:29
- If Shalane Flanagan breaks the American record, she’ll also break the course record of 2:19:46, set in 2001