{"id":1221,"date":"2003-04-20T10:33:58","date_gmt":"2003-04-20T16:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/?p=1221"},"modified":"2003-04-20T10:33:58","modified_gmt":"2003-04-20T16:33:58","slug":"london-summer-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/london\/london-summer-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"The London Marathon 2003 summary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After the race, Radcliffe\u2019s fitness guru, Gerard Hartmann, said: &#8220;What Paula has achieved is a quantum leap not only for women\u2019s marathon-running but the men\u2019s as well. After her achievement today, everyone should be re-thinking their game plan.&#8221;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-content\/uploads\/radcliffe-2003.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1222\" style=\"margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;\" title=\"Radcliffe 2003\" src=\"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-content\/uploads\/radcliffe-2003.jpg\" alt=\"Radcliffe 2003\" width=\"269\" height=\"382\" \/><\/a>With this said, we can only wonder whether &#8216;Superwoman&#8217; can live up to Hartmann&#8217;s sentiments.<\/p>\n<p>For the race itself, Radcliffe was purely spectacular and the Men&#8217;s race was enthralling, with 5 runners locked in battle over the final 200m.<\/p>\n<p>Once all the dust had settled regarding the pacemakers, which she had for company however at no time did she &#8216;slipstream&#8217; them to gain the benefit of a &#8216;buffer&#8217;, Radcliffe was to be subjected to murmurings of &#8216;blood doping&#8217; etc &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Time-to-Run has mentioned elsewhere in the Marathon Section, that Women&#8217;s Marathoning was due for a major shake-up, as the distance had progressed in line with the Men&#8217;s record and that the Golden Years were in the early 80&#8217;s. Thereafter the record was reduced to sub 2:20 and then to sub 2:19 a week later.<\/p>\n<p>Then Radcliffe arrived and she has now moved the time to a landmark 2:15 which will probably stand for another number of years, just as the 2:20 time stood for years.<\/p>\n<p>The Brit is a dedicated athlete and her focus is supreme, the amount of money available to her now is phenomenal, and she can race sparingly. This will allow for her to have another &#8216;crack&#8217; at going sub 2:15.<\/p>\n<p>On the Men&#8217;s side, Gezahegne Abera of Ethiopia, by winning in a sprint finish in 2:07:56, added to his allure of being a Big Day exponent. He will now go towards the Paris World Championship Marathon with an even higher status, as he seeks to defend his title.<\/p>\n<p>If Abera is able to achieve this, he will move into the ranks of the great. Only time will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the race, Radcliffe\u2019s fitness guru, Gerard Hartmann, said: &#8220;What Paula has achieved is a quantum leap not only for women\u2019s marathon-running but the men\u2019s as well. After her achievement today, everyone should be re-thinking their game plan.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[83,407,555,578,695],"class_list":["post-1221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-london","tag-83","tag-gezahegne-abera","tag-london","tag-marathon","tag-paula-radcliffe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}