The Sunday March 13 local dailies carried about two separate Marathon races conducted by the Dimapur Don Bosco Higher Secondary School and Christ King Higher Secondary School Kohima simultaneously on 12 March 2016 where it is reported of one Thejavilie of CKHSS Kohima having won the race clocking 19 minutes time. At the first glance I was looking for the missing hours and the seconds as the marathon records comes in hours, minutes and seconds. But when I did not find them except the minutes my initial ponder of typographical error melted away and understood that something was basically wrong with the Marathon itself as it was simply a school events where the school must have made a token Marathon race. The standardized modern marathon is 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 kms) The Olympic Men’s Marathon record is 2 hrs 06 minutes and 32 seconds set at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics by Samuel Kamau Wonjiru of Kenya at an average speed of 20.01 kilo meter per hour or 12.43 miles per hour. Women record of 2hrs. 23min.07 seconds is set by Tuli Gelana of Ethiopia at the 2012 London Summer Olympics.
The fastest Marathon world record is set at 2hrs. 02min. 57 seconds at the Berlin Marathon 2014 by Denis Kimetto of Kenya while his compatriot Emmanuel Mutai was the runner up with the record of 2hrs. 3min. 12 seconds in the same race. In the Olympics, Marathon is a road race of 26 miles followed by a partial lap of 385 yards of the track finish inside the stadium entering through a designated entry to the main stadium. It has become tradition for Men’s Olympic Marathon to be last event of the athletics calendar, with a finish inside the Olympic Stadium, often within the hour, or even incorporating into the closing ceremony.
The origin of Marathon race comes from the legend of Pheidippides (Phidippides), a Greek messenger who was sent from the battle field of Marathon to Athens, 26 miles to announce the defeat of Persian by the Greek at the battle of Marathon. The first two decades of the fifth century B.C marked one of the great turning points of world history. The powerful Persian Empire in their ambitious expansion of their territory to Europe landed a large force outside of Athens on the plains of Marathon. The vastly outnumbered Athens desperately needed support of Spartan’s military bases to help fend off the Persian attack. Time was short so the Athenian generals send Phidippides a professional runner to Sparta to ask help. The 140 mile course was very mountainous and rugged. Phidippides ran the course in about 36 hours. Sparta agreed to help but said they would not take the field until the moon was full due to religious laws. Phidippides ran back to Athens, another 140 miles with the disappointing news. Leaving no choice, the small Athenian army, including Phidippides immediately marched to the plains of Marathon to prepare for battle. The Athenian Army outnumbered 4 to 1 but launched a surprise attack early in the morning which appeared suicidal. But by the day’s end 6400 bodies of Persian soldier lay dead on the field while only 192 Athenians had been killed. The surviving Persian fled to sea and headed south to Athens where they hoped to attack the city before the Greek Army could re-assemble there.
Phidippides was again called upon to run to Athens (26 miles away) to carry the news of the victory and warning about the approaching Persian ships. Despite his fatigue after his recent run to Sparta and back and having fought all morning in heavy armor, Phidipiddes rose to the challenge pushing him past normal limits of human endurance. He reached Athens in 3 hours, delivered his message and then died shortly thereafter from sheer exhaustion. Meanwhile, Sparta and other Greek polies eventually came to the aid of Athens and they were able to turn back the Persian attempt to conquer Greece. The Marathon event was therefore instituted as one of the original modern Olympics event in the 1896 Athens Olympic in commemoration of this fabled Greek soldier Phidippides who ran from the battle field of Marathon to Athens. Nowadays the Athens Marathon race is run in the same mountainous rugged tract taken by Phidippides way back in 490 B.C.
Besides the Marathon, half Marathon is also a recognized event. The reporting of Dimapur and Kohima Marathon is therefore put at rest a misnomer and could be a cross country race as no human being can run 42 kms (26 miles) in 19 minutes at an average of 2.21 kms per minute. Let us be careful in conduct of the event and also inadvertent reporting in the paper to avoid great embarrassment as the Limca and Genius book of record people may come hunting for the winner to establish a new world record after reading the report in the paper. Small beginning leads to big ends therefore holding of school annual sports week is quite encouraging. We only need right application of game rules for which the Sports Department or the concerned Sports Associations may be contacted for guidance in future for health development of the games.
T. Meren Paul
General Secretary, Nagaland Olympic Association.
