Berlin hypes Assefa at the world record, she says she wants a PR
World Athletics says Assefa is ready to challenge the mark. Assefa is talking about something smaller.
Berlin is selling Sunday as Tigst Assefa's run at the women's marathon world record, Ruth Chepngetich's 2:09:56. Assefa is not selling it that way. As Jonathan Gault points out, Assefa herself just says she wants to beat her personal best of 2:11:53.
They're hyping Tigst Assefa's run as an attempt on Ruth Chepngetich's dubious 2:09:56 WR. Assefa just says she wants to PR (2:11:53).
That is a gap of nearly two minutes between the number the race is marketing and the number the athlete is talking about.
Why Berlin wants it back
Gault frames the push simply. Berlin has lost both world records over the last three years, and it is hoping to get one back on Sunday. A world record in Berlin is the race's whole identity, and right now it does not have one.
World Athletics is running the same line in its preview, saying Assefa is ready to challenge the world record, with Geay, Adola, Kitata and Molla among the favourites in the men's race.
The record nobody wants to talk about
The complication is the mark itself. Gault calls Chepngetich's 2:09:56 dubious. David Monti went further, writing that in his own opinion the record was dirty even though it was ratified, and asking how clean athletes are ever going to break it.
That is two people who cover the sport closely saying the same thing in public within a day of each other. Neither is a governing body finding, and the record stands as ratified. But it explains why a marathon promoting a world record attempt is a slightly awkward thing to watch right now.
What it actually means
If Assefa runs 2:11 something and wins, Berlin gets a great race and no record, and that is the most likely version of Sunday based on what Assefa has actually said she is chasing. If she runs faster than 2:09:56, the sport gets an argument about a mark a lot of people already do not believe in, rather than a clean celebration.
The men's race is the one with no asterisk hanging over it, and the field World Athletics lists is deep. Kenenisa Bekele, added late at 44, is also in it.
Although it was ratified, it is my own opinion that it was dirty. How are clean athletes ever going to break it?
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