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Poor preparation, maybe started too fast in the early stages of the race or just not feeding enough during the race: There are days when even the best and most skilled athletes in the world can not reach the finish in a marathon. That is a personal drama. But that's also pretty commonplace: It's now 42.195 kilometers, at top speeds of up to 20 kilometers per hour - marathon at top level is not a health sport.
But what is not commonplace: If - as in the Athletics World Championships in Qatar - when a marathon with 68 starters 28 runners collapse and many of them even with wheelchairs from the track, this is a devastating picture. Then the marathon sport is not just no more health sports, then he is life threatening.
Far away from ideal conditions
How could the International Athletics Federation IAAF allow this race under the given conditions? The extreme heat at midnight (32.7 degrees Celsius) and the high humidity (73.3 percent) should not have surprised anyone. A look into the historical weather data of Qatar would have been enough to reject this project quickly. Maybe even looking into one of the many marathon books would have been enough: Where are top times going, and why?
The world's most important marathons take place in New York or Berlin, Boston or London. Here are the fastest runners in the world, here are hundreds of thousands of amateur runners on the track. The runs in New York and Berlin take place in the fall, London and Boston in the spring - in temperate temperatures around 20 degrees Celsius. In such conditions, the pulse does not jump up directly, the maximum efficiency can be kept constant over a period of time.
But at temperatures over 25 degrees, it is dangerous, and the high humidity in Qatar also ensures a huge loss of water, which can be compensated even by regular catering during the competition hardly. As if you had a hole in the tank, the gas eventually goes out. Also for this reason, many top athletes have canceled their start at the Marathon in Doha, including the German marathon runner Philipp Pflieger. He considered a personal top time in Qatar unlikely (read the entire SPIEGEL interview here), and the women's race may have confirmed it - it was the slowest in World Cup history.
How the IAAF can react
If it still needed proof that the awarding of the title fights to Qatar was not in the interest of the athletes, the women's marathon has delivered it. Anyway, a sensitive topic: The award to Qatar is under suspicion of corruption, reports the SPIEGEL in its latest issue. The World Cup start is also a debacle for the host country, as they want to put themselves in front of the Football World Cup 2022 as an ideal host for sporting events in the shop window.
On the last day of the competition (6th of October) the men's marathon will take place. There are now two options: to move the event to the stadium; The arena is "cooled down" to about 25 degrees Celsius and there is a much lower humidity. That too would be far from ideal conditions, but at least a real step for the health of athletes.
The second option: cancel the competition. Renewed images of collapsing top athletes can hardly afford this association with all the other negative headlines. Both options are unlikely to please the marathon runners. Because 400-meter lap racing can be extremely grueling in a stadium in the Marathon head sports; and because the hard preparatory strains would be extremely bitter if it was rejected.
The fact that the marathon runners have already taken part in this torture and had to serve as guinea pigs for further competitions must not be missing in any World Championship results.