2010 - End of Year Reviews – Long Distance, Track

Monte Carlo - In part six of their annual review, statisticians A. Lennart Julin (SWE) and Mirko Jalava (FIN) continue their look back at the past season with an overview of Long Distance action on the track.

MEN –

Men’s long distance running is missing its star athlete right now. Once again this season, athletes the likes of Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele were nowhere to be seen and no athlete was clearly above the others. In the men’s 5000m the stats also show an extremely tight top high end with the first 20 athletes on the world list within just nine seconds of each other. In the men’s 10,000m just two athletes made it narrowly under 27 minutes with the eight-minute barrier was not breached in the 3000m Steeplechase.

5000m -

In the 5000m Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, the 2003 World champion from Paris at just 18, was the world leader clocking 12:51.21 in Doha in May. But the rest of Kipchoge’s season wasn’t as glorious and in the end the runner with the most balanced results was Ethiopian Imane Merga. The 22-year-old grabbed two important wins in Oslo and Rome in June and was in the top three in many other Diamond League meets as well.