Ian O'Riordan On AthleticsIt's been an amazing few weeks for marathon running - a world record in Berlin, a course record in Dublin, and record temperatures in Chicago - and at the risk of hitting the wall of marathon commentary, we're not finished yet.
New York stages not one but two marathons this weekend, and at stake is that most cherished of marathon prizes: Olympic qualification.
New York in cool and airy November may seem a strange place to decide who runs in hot and smoggy Beijing next August, and it sure is. But unlike in all other athletics events in Beijing, marathon qualification has to be sorted out well in advance, for obvious reasons. No one should run 26.2 miles without a long-term plan, least of all in the Olympics.
Time, naturally, is moving on. Next Thursday marks the nine-months-to-go point in the Beijing countdown. The opening ceremony and lighting of the Olympic flame are set for 8/8/08, at 8:08.08 in the evening - eight being the number associated with prosperity and confidence in Chinese culture.
Anyway, by 10am today, New York time, three Olympic qualifiers will be determined. Along with tomorrow's New York marathon, the city is today hosting the US Olympic trials for men, with only the top three finishers selected for Beijing next August.
It's the first time the trials have been staged the year prior to the Olympics, and the course is an unwelcoming and undulating circuit around Central Park. But you don't argue with the US Olympic trials. You could be a former world-record holder (Khalid Khannouchi), the fastest American this year (Ryan Hall) or the silver medallist from Athens (Meb Keflezighi), but unless you make the top three you can forget about going to Beijing.
The US Olympic trials always throw up some surprises. After starting at the Rockefeller Centre, heading south to Times Square, then north on to Seventh Avenue and into Central Park, the field of 120 runners will complete one four-mile and four five-mile loops, and there's really no predicting the first three home at the Tavern on the Green.
It's a different scenario in tomorrow's New York marathon, which not only runs through the five boroughs but also has a clear race favourite on the women's side in Britain's Paula Radcliffe. Although it marks her first marathon since winning the World Championships two years ago, and her first major test since giving birth to daughter Isla last January, this is a race Radcliffe badly wants and needs to win in her quest for Olympic qualification.
She turns 34 next month, and Radcliffe knows as well as anyone that Beijing represents her last chance of securing that elusive Olympic medal, preferably gold.
New York will give her a fair idea of where she stands, the field including the two-time defending champion, Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia, the recently crowned world champion, Catherine Ndereba of Kenya, and Gete Wami of Ethiopia, who is looking to win New York just five weeks after winning Berlin, and in the process earn herself an extra $500,000 (€345,057) for topping the World Marathon Majors series.
Radcliffe knows the course well, having won there three years ago in a classic redemption run after her Athens Olympic nightmare, even if her three-second victory over Kenya's Susan Chepkemei remains the closest in New York history.
She recently completed preparation in Limerick under the watchful eye of Ger Hartmann, who remains one of her chief motivators, and this included her second-best-ever pre-marathon training run.
It's worth recalling her Olympic withdrawal remains her only marathon defeat, and if Radcliffe doesn't win tomorrow it will be a big surprise, most of all to herself. Still, she's likely to run the London marathon next April, and then the real pressure show of Beijing can begin.
Unfortunately there is no Irish interest in New York, and it's likely there will be no Irish interest in the Olympic marathon either.
Having had no representation at Athens (with the obvious exception of the defrocked priest Cornelius Horan) it's now 1992 since Ireland had any Olympic marathon qualifiers, when John Treacy, Andy Ronan and Tommy Hughes all made the standard for Barcelona. On the women's side the last qualifiers were in 1988, when Marie Rollins-Murphy and Ailish Smith competed in Seoul.
In Monday's Dublin marathon, Michael O'Connor was the first Irish finisher, in 2:25:48, and won the national title. No disrespect to that performance, but it's nearly 10 minutes outside the world record - as in Radcliffe's women's world record of 2:15:25 - and over 20 minutes outside the men's world record of 2:04:26, which Haile Gebrselassie ran in Berlin.
O'Connor needs to run 2:15 or quicker to make Beijing, and while that's not impossible, it's improbable.
There are only a couple of real contenders to reach that standard; Mark Carroll recently ran 65:31 in the Niagara Falls half-marathon and will run Fukuoka, Japan, on December 2nd hoping to make his third Olympics, at the age of 36.
The best prospect is Martin Fagan, still only 24 and now based in Flagstaff, Arizona. Last month Fagan ran 63:04 in the Boston half-marathon and is targeting the Houston marathon on January 13th for possible Olympic qualification.
It's also worth watching Rosemary Ryan, who ran 2:39:41 in Berlin and plans another go at the women's standard of 2:37 next year.
There are many explanations for this drop-off in Irish marathon standards, one of which was presented by the former Olympian Jerry Kiernan during an interview in this month's Irish Runner magazine: "You go into Dublin at the weekend and you see the number of fellas getting absolutely pissed, and you say to yourself - no Olympic athletes here."
It's sad but true and not entirely unrelated to why no Irishman can currently run 2:15 for the distance.
