Never backward in coming forward, Nike has got in on the festive mood in a cunning way with its announcement that it was behind the ultimate vanity project: producing the world’s first sub-two-hour marathon.

As gimmicks go, this one is right up there in the chutzpah stakes. Nike know how to get people talking and this has done the job.

Like the sub-four-minute mile, once considered unassailable, the sub-two-hour marathon has taken on mythical status. Given the tiny increments with which the marathon record has been reduced, the general reckoning was that it would take 75 to 100 years to get near the target.

Whatever happens, the bid won’t have the romanticism or lore of Roger Bannister’s heroic mile run at Oxford in 1954. This one is strictly business.

The athletics apparel giant will put its financial muscle behind the move, using 20 experts and three of the world’s best marathoners. Guinea pigs will abound. There will be laboratory testing and careful calibrations. There will be shoe technology and controlled conditions.

It will be every bit the marketing sleight of hand it appears to be, with smoke and mirrors thrown in for good measure. Whatever it takes.

Although details are sketchy – the announcement was made via single technology and athletics websites – the sponsors are sure to opt for a closed course (at sea level) and optimal conditions.

The science will be managed to the nth degree, with emphasis on nutrition and dehydration. The biggest focus, naturally, will be on the running shoes which will be optimised by a company whose business it is to make athletes run faster. Given a goal like this, all bets are off as to what might be produced. Short of the techies adding jet engines, they are likely to have a full go.

Unfortunately for Nike, the three most recent record holders, including Dennis Kimetto, who set the 2:02:57 world best in 2014, are not part of the project – they are contracted by the other lot, adidas.

But they still have three men on board with the potential to go exceptionally fast: Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia and Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea.

Kipchoge is the Olympic champion and 2016’s form man with a personal best of 2:03:05. Desisa won the Boston Marathon the year of the bombing (2013) and has a 2:04:45 PB.

Tadese is the slowest (2:10:41), but holds the world record for the half marathon.

Speed is everything in the pursuit of the record. A 1:59:59 run would require an insane 2:50/km pace, significantly down from the 2:55 set by Kimetto. A full 2,5 percent must be knocked off – a massive chunk that would constitute a near miracle performance.

In 100m terms, that would be like slicing 0.24 seconds off Usain Bolt’s 9.58 sec world record.

We are in the era of super-fast running with a potential record in the offing almost any time one of the major marathons is run. The Berlin course is fastest. It is flat, has few corners and temperatures are mild to cool, conditions that have led to six of the last seven world records falling since 2000 in Germany.

Even now, in the early stages of the Nike news, two camps have emerged. The most evident is the one questioning the legitimacy of the project. Everything about it reeks of a con job.

But, hey, this is 2016 – anyone who still believes in the sanctity of sport must live in La La Land. Just ask the Russians.

Sport is full of gimmicks anyway.

The Springboks playing the Proteas in a cricket match was one such event.

Earlier this year, Justin Gatlin ran 100m in 9.45 sec on a Japanese game show. It was the fastest ever, but he needed wind turbines to help him along.

And this week the NFL said it would introduce dodgeball in an effort to breathe life into Pro Bowl weekend.

The other camp sees the project for what it is – a cheeky marketing move – and are seduced by its theatrical nature. It may not be on the level, but it sure will be fun.

I’m caught somewhere in the middle, an old duffer who adores tradition, but also someone who admires the audacity and can-do spirit of entrepreneurs and, yes, even hucksters shot through with vanity.

Screw it, they should do it. – © Sunday Tribune

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wayde van Niekerk slept in his own home for the first time this week.

Having recently bought his dream house in Bloemfontein, the Olympic champion finally found the time to move in and make it his own.

These are busy times for South Africa’s outstanding sportsman of 2016.

The athletics superstar now ranks among sporting royalty, comfortably alongside eminent figures like Usain Bolt, Steph Curry and Serena Williams.

That’s what happens when you obliterate a long-standing world record held by Michael Johnson, causing the great man himself to exclaim, “That was a massacre. This young man has done something truly special.”

Bolt was the sentimental choice of voters who recently chose him as world athlete of the year, but Van Niekerk’s majestic Olympic 400m run was the moment of 2016. For South Africans who arose at around 2am to watch the spectacle from Rio, it was impossible to go back to sleep, the race instantly becoming one of those where-were-you-when questions.

Lest you forget, earlier this year, Van Niekerk also became the first man to achieve the sub-10 100m, sub-20 200m and sub-44 400m triple, a singular achievement that places him in the pantheon.

As the marketers are fond of saying, he’s “box office”, a can’t-miss star who has sponsors and corporates lined up.

“It’s been total mayhem and chaos,” says his agent Peet van Zyl, who compares the bedlam to when Oscar Pistorius was such a hot property. Van Zyl looked after the disgraced athlete’s interests too.

Van Niekerk has had to walk a tightrope between maintaining his fitness and training as an athlete with the understandable demands of corporates and assorted hangers-on who all want a piece of him. He was in Monte Carlo for the IAAF awards the other day; the phone doesn’t stop for such requests.

It’s seldom easy. He returned to serious training in early November and his coach, tannie Ans Botha, made it clear that fitness came first. She understands that he is being pulled in all directions, but isn’t shy to raise an eyebrow when the fuss interferes with his training.

The Olympic champion has had to quickly learn about making pleasantries and glad-handing. He’s naturally shy and introverted and by all accounts his remarkable success hasn’t gone to his head.

 

“Sir, you know me,” he tells Van Zyl, “I’d much rather run for money than talk for it.”

His agent attributes this modesty to both his humble upbringing and his place in the “bubble of Bloemfontein” that protects him.

What Van Niekerk doesn’t want to be is a one-hit wonder who quietly drifts away. He might have climbed Everest in an Olympic sense, but his goals remain stellar. One of them is to defend his world 400m title at the world championship in London next year.

London will also mark the final curtain for Bolt, a big fan of Van Niekerk, and may well symbolise a passing of the baton; the poster child of athletics anointing his successor, who is just 24.

Going sub-43 for the 400m may seem other-worldly, but Johnson himself believes that Van Niekerk could do it. Running more 200m races could be a means to getting there and Van Niekerk is dead keen to do so.

His 19.94 best is freakishly quick and presumably Frankie Fredericks’ Africa record (19.68) is an early target.

Unfortunately, the world championship schedule won’t allow him to double up for the 400m and 200m, but he might have a crack at the SA championship in April. He and teammate Akani Simbine, the Olympic 100m finalist, joke about taking one another on in the 200m, an intriguing prospect that would surely pack in the crowds.

But it might not happen if Athletics SA, not the most progressive bunch around, don’t shift the date of nationals as they clash with the IAAF World Relays that take place in the Bahamas. SA could put together a potent team for the 4x100m, with Van Niekerk part of the mix.

The point is that Van Niekerk wants to run in South Africa. And South Africans would clamour to watch him.

We should all salute our splendid, sensational hero. He’s pure gold in every sense. – © Sunday Tribune