The womens marathon even has already started at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.
Lumpy will attempt to live blog the event this evening, keeping our dear readers informed. Yes, I’m going to watch the whole thing.
Start:
-00:14:22 Just catching up with the status now. Appearantly it is a nearly pancake flat course. Deena Kastor was just talking about the cooling vest they wear before the race. I think we need some of them.
-00:16:13 Evidently the temperature is good, but there are big concerns about the high humidity. Doing a 3.1 mile look around the Temple of Heaven.
commercial break…
-00:19:06 OMG! Deena Kastor just dropped out of the race, holding her foot!!! Nope hope for a US medal now. How horrible for her.
-00:23:35 You know, this course is strange. The blue tangent line is way too close to barricades. Paula Radcliff is in it. Evidently she wasn’t originally expected to compete due to all the training she missed.
-00:28:07 77F 88% Humidity. BAH! They have SPONGES!!!
-00:48:57 Evidently the pace is slow. I’m rooting for Paula at this point. She deserves it after what happened in Athens.
-00:53:24 Wow. Fascinating. They have “computer chips” to track their times. Who would have thought of such a device?!
–Profiling some Chinese marathoner. Evidently, she runs, while training, around 750 miles per month. Um, that’s about a marathon a day. Feh.
-00:59:43 Raining now. Wet road. Humid.
-01:02:55 They are at mile 11. Um…they’re only an HOUR!!!
-01:05:13 Yup, there’s Paula. Woo Hoo!!! Nearing an Elite Runner hydration station.
-01:08:27 Approaching the half-way point.
-01:24:00 Commercial Break.
– Well, now they’ve swtiched to a bunch of mens tack&field stuff.
–Michael Phelps? Who’s that?
-01:34:27 The leader…didn’t catch her name…evidently is using smelling salts.
–Commercial break. McDeath’s commercial hockin’ “chicken for breakfast”. Evidently it is a good training food.
-01:38:32 Romanian runner is leading by :38 seconds. Just passing Peking University. Marathon finish is evidently sold out.
-01:39:47 57 second lead at about mile 18.
-01:40:45 Evidently she did this last Olympics and flamed out near the end. Hmmm, I don’t see Paula in the chase pack.
-01:46:53 Evidently not smelling salts, but she has some sort of goo carbohydrate mix. Leader is working hard, looking a little rough. 57 second lead still.
-01:47:37 Oh, Paula, not looking good. She’s kinda far back in the pack.
-01:49:33 Evidently they had a couple of guys scraping gum off this section of the course the other day. The Romanian is still keeping her lead. Her name is Constantina Tomescu.
-01:53:56 Oh…Paula is NOT doing well. Her chances of medaling are about nil now.
-01:55:54 Constantina Tomescu looking good.
–Commercials…
-02:02:02 Water stop for Elite runners.
-02:10:45 Constantina is more than 1 minute ahead now. She running around a 5:30 mile, evidently.
-02:13:08 If she keep ups the pace, even 0:10 seconds slower, there is virtually no way for the chase pack to catch her.
–More Commercials….
-02:17:38 Tomescu still over a whole minute ahead. The finish at the Birds Nest is in sight. Paula evidently stopped and stretched and continued on. So sorry for Deena and Paula.
-02:19:43 Oh, how nice that is looks like the Chinese runners have extra people along the route for water?!?!
-02:20:22 Tomescu in sight of the Birds Nest Finish. She’s 38 and the second oldest runner in this event. Go! Go! Go!
-02:21:45 Heh, someone cleaning the camera lens. Tomescu is looking good. She’s got the “end in sight” burst of energy going on. Still over 1 min ahead.
-02:23:58 About to ender the final stretch to the stadium…no one else in sight.
-02:24:54 CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! She’s in the stadium for what amounts to a victory lap!!! Kenya and China battling for silver and bronze.
-02:26:44 Tomescu WINS! And is the “oldest” winner ever of the Olympic Womens Marathon Event at 38.
Final Results:
| 1 | ROU | Constantina Tomescu Dita | 2h26:44 |
| 2 | KEN | Wincatherine Nyambura Ndereba | 2h27:06 |
| 3 | CHN |
Chunxiu Zhou | 2h27:07 |
I enjoyed your recap…Tomate and I thought the “camera wipe” was funny for some reason when we saw it on TV…. I also thought the blue line was way too close to the barricades in some turns. We watched the first 1 1/2 hours of the live marathon broadcast then had to DVR the rest because we had a rendez vous to attend. Too bad for Deena…I really thought this was going to be her Olympics, she’d been doing so well these last couple of years. Paula would have also been a great comeback story after what happened to her in Athens. As far as Ndereba, I believe the Olympic Marathon is just about the only thing she hasn’t already won, a gold medal here would have been nice to complete her collection.
Anyway, I just watched the rest of it this morning and was surprised Constantina pulled it off this time. You know, the only one other runner older than Constantina at this marathon was Liza Hunter-Galvan running for New Zealand. I’ve been following Liza’s story because she’s actually a San Antonio resident and she’s the one who won the San Antonio Marathon the year I ran it in 2005, so naturally I was rooting for her too. Anyway, I’ve actually watched a couple of races where Constantina tried the same thing only to burn out towards the end. Looks like it worked this time…good for her.
Yeah, evidently the first instance noted above of Constantina “smelling” something was, indeed, smelling salts.
Not sure I have a problem with that.