The results of the Istanbul marathon have been published. Couldn’t resist – quickly put together some statistics.
Out of 2918 people who ran the marathon, 144 were Russians.
Out of 5000 people who ran 15 km, there were only 61 Russians. Turks were the majority (75%), 4% were Germans, British, Russians, Americans, and French together made up 5%. The remaining share consisted of 68 other nationalities.
The top three spots were claimed by Kenyans in both the 42km and 15km races. Kenyans just don’t know how to run slowly – there were only six of them there, and the two slowest girls finished the 15 km within fifty minutes. In the marathon, all three Kenyans took first, second, and third places. How one can run nearly twice as fast for forty minutes is beyond me. Probably, one must be born in Kenya.
By the way, seven out of the ten best marathon results in history are held by Kenyans. In 2011, only seven Russian athletes managed to run a marathon in less than 2 hours and 15 minutes. This barrier was easily overcome by 150 Kenyans. Interestingly, most of them are from Iten – 2400 meters above sea level.
I took a modest 738th place (out of 5000). Next time, my goal is to be twice as close – for that, I need to finish within 1:10. And the next distance – 21 km. I still don’t know in which country.
Update: the official statistics lied about the average speed. They have the fastest Kenyan running at an average speed of 27 km/h when in reality it was 21 km/h
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 