They went out slow and came home fast, and when it was over, and Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia was sprinting through the plaza and Invalides, the Olympic marathon once more proved why it can be that most captivating of races.
On a bright and clear morning in Paris, 80 of the world’s best distance runners blazed west out to Versailles and back to the center of the French capital, just ahead of a scorching afternoon, with Tola leading the way for most of it and finishing in an Olympic record time of two hours, six minutes, 21 seconds.
Tola continued to be one of the sport’s great late bloomers, a 32-year-old runner has become especially good at excelling in warmer conditions. He got his first big win at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Ore. in 2022, another summer race in uncomfortable conditions, then backed it up in New York last November, in unseasonably warm conditions.
On Saturday morning, he captured another of the sport’s ultimate prizes, and he did it running with the kind of aggressive style befitting a runner on a serious hot streak.
Tola surged clear and never looked back (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
After letting the little-known Eyob Faniel of Italy lead for most of the first half of the race, Tola made his first move just before the halfway mark.
He stayed at the front or close to it the rest of the way, putting the hammer down after 20 miles, surging up a hill through the forest west of the city limits to create a gap that began at more than 10 seconds between him and the chasers and stretching it out to 21 seconds by the time it was over.
“In my life, this is my great achievement,” said Tola, who assured himself a hallowed spot in Ethiopian culture with his win. In a society that reveres its distance runners, Tola’s name will now be uttered in the same sentences as Abebe Bikila, the first East African to win the Olympic marathon when he covered the distance without shoes in Rome in 1960. Bikele won again in 1964 in Tokyo, the start of a more than a half-century of near dominance of long distance racing by East Africans.
Belgium’s Bashir Abdi took the silver medal and Kenya’s Benson Kipruto took the bronze.
Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, a two-time gold medalist and the only man to run the distance in less than two hours, suffered from cramping early in the race, fell to the back of the pack and did not finish, likely an unfortunate conclusion to a storied Olympic career for the man widely considered the sport’s greatest ever marathoner.
There is a saying that gets batted around a lot in the French capital: “La victoire appartient au plus opiniatre” – Victory belongs to the tenacious. Some credit Napoleon. Others credit Roland Garros, the French tennis great.
The words perfectly summed up Tola’s run. He filled it with surge after surge to put away the field until he didn’t have to surge anymore but kept on surging anyway until the very end, raising his arms to the crowd at Invalides only in the last 200 meters.
Tola crossed the line an Olympic record time (Andrej Isakovic/AFP via Getty Images)
Most remarkably, Tola didn’t even make the Ethiopian team originally. He was the reserve until Sisay Lemma, the Boston Marathon champion, got injured. Tola, though, had kept himself in shape and was ready to fill in.
“I trained hard so I could win,” Tola said. “I was fully prepared and knew I could fulfil my dream.”
Plenty of runners knew Tola was capable of this, maybe too well.
Connor Mantz, the rising American runner who finished eighth, 105 seconds behind Tola, saw the Ethiopian make his first attack just past the halfway mark and went with him. He was sure that was the move that was going to break the leaders away from everyone else.
But there were more moves to come. At the top of the next hill, Akira Akasaki of Japan, another young and rising distance runner, hit the gas and started running at roughly a 4:40 per mile pace. When Tola then made what turned out to be the move that won him the race around the 17-mile mark, Mantz’s legs were too beat up to cover it, and Tola essentially buried everyone there with roughly 45 minutes of racing to go. Tola ran the first half in one hour, four minutes, 51 seconds and the second half in one hour, one minute, 35 seconds. Whoosh.
“Should have been a little more conservative, but I wanted a chance to medal,” Mantz said. “Fitness was definitely there today but execution could have used a little bit of work.”
Mantz’s close friend and training partner, Clayton Young, finished just behind him in ninth place in two hours, eight minutes, 44 seconds. Perhaps believing the race would be run in hotter conditions instead of the mid-60s sun that prevailed, their coach had told them he thought a time under 2:09 would get them on the podium.
Abdi, Tola and Kipruto with their medals (Andrej Isakovic/AFP via Getty Images)
It wasn’t to be, not with Tola bringing all those surges. Even his compatriot, Kenenisa Bekele, one of the most decorated Ethiopian distance runners but at 42 nearing the end of his career, was gushing after finishing 39th.
“Fantastic,” Bekele said of Tola’s performance. “This is the best result.”
Tola appeared to know the race was in the bag with about four miles to go. He swiveled his head at the 35 kilometer mark to check to see if anyone was gaining on him. He saw the chase pack was roughly 100 meters behind him, a four-man group that included another compatriot, Denisa Geleta, Abdi, Kipruto and Akasaki seemingly engaged in a battle for the last two spots on the podium.
He barely looked back again. He didn’t need to.
“Not easy to win the Olympic Games,” he said, in perhaps the understatement of the past two weeks in Paris. “Not at all. I am very proud, very happy.”
(Top photo: Andrej Isakovic/AFP via Getty Images)
