The search for champions

A total of 387 Maltese runners completed either the full Malta Marathon or Half Marathon in 2007. This was an increase of slightly more than five per cent over the previous high of 366 Maltese runners in the 2006 events.

This 2007 total can be broken down into 42 Maltese completing the full marathon and 345 completing the much more popular half marathon distance.

As mentioned last week, the total number of finishers in 2007 (foreign and Maltese) was a new record of 796, an increase of almost nine per cent over the previous high of 710 in 2006.

As can be seen, the Maltese make up almost 50 per cent of the field each year (48.6 per cent in 2007, to be precise).

It should not be too optimistic to hope that the total number of Maltese finishers can exceed 400 in 2008, and the overall total finishers in both events exceed 800 for the first time.

As the figures suggest, road running participation figures in Malta are healthier than ever.

This is readily apparent; runners and joggers are everywhere and most road races today boast sizeable fields. Yet, this strong health has not been reflected in faster winning times.

Last week, I began discussing what had at first appeared to be a perfectly logical premise, and called it the "pyramid effect".

In short, if there are 100 runners in a race and two achieve international standard performances, then if the participation increases to 200, one might logically expect a similar increase in international standard runners (i.e. four).

This had been an initial hope of the MMOC when we launched the Malta Marathon in 1986. A total of 67 Maltese runners took part in that inaugural event, and two of them had recently run 2:27 and 2:32 for the marathon.

In 2007, a total of 387 Maltese runners took part in the 22nd Malta Marathon, an increase of 577 per cent over the 1986 participation.

Yet, the results show that instead of 11 Maltese (a pro-rata match of the increase in participation) now being capable of times of 2:27-2:32, we only had one in the 2007 event, Jonathan Balzan in 2:32.

So, the apparent logic behind our premise has been exposed as flawed. But this failure is not a purely Maltese phenomenon.

Cursory research of other major events has proven to be remarkably similar. In the 2007 NYC Marathon, there were about 215 athletes running times of sub-2:46. Way back in 1983, there were over 600.

At the very sharp end, the US holds Olympic Trials for each track and field event to determine team selection. It's a harsh, but ultimately, fair method of first three past the post make the US Olympic team and go to the Games.

There are also qualifying standards required to reach the Olympic Trials (e.g. achieving a qualifying time of sub-2:22 to take part in the male Olympic Marathon Trial which took place recently in New York City).

In 2007, only 13 American males qualified for the Trials with times faster than 2:15. For the 1984

Trials, at least 27 qualified with times faster than 2:15, and 12 of them had times under 2:11.

As further evidence that increased participation does not lead to improvement in performances, many marathon national records are aging; few young runners are coming through in western Europe and America to drive them to new heights.

In the UK, the marathon record is 2:07:13 and held by Steve Jones, who set it in 1985. The second fastest is 2:08:33 by Charlie Spedding and this, too, was set in 1985.

In fact, only one top-10 all-time UK marathon ranking time has been set since 2000; Mark Steinle with 2:09:17 in eighth place.

This is despite the fact that the London Marathon now boasts record fields approaching 30,000 runners and 80,000 applicants.

We could look further afield (Berlin, Boston, Chicago), but the evidence indicates that although 'large-city' US and European marathons are hugely popular and have boosted participation figures everywhere, nowhere have they had a positive effect on high-quality race performances in the host country.

The evidence in Malta is in agreement.

Therefore, if we are to improve the standard of long distance racing here, we must not expect it to occur simply because of increased participation in the Malta Marathon.

In short, we must look elsewhere for tomorrow's distance champions.

More on this next week. Enjoy your running.

johnwalsh42195@yahoo.it