Sports Then and Now

Former F1 pilot Hans Stuck is credited with one of the most memorable quotes in autodom.

“When I raced a car last,” Stuck proclaims, “it was a time when sex was safe and racing was dangerous, now it’s the other way around.”

Social commentary aside, Stuck is right. The advances made in safety for racing drivers over the last half-century have reduced the sports mortality rate by orders of magnitude, and even allowed drivers to walk away from crashes that at one time would most certainly have been fatal.

Even now, engineers and medical experts work tirelessly to continue to improve the safety record of a sport that is inherently dangerous. Let’s take a look back at how things came so far.

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It is believed that marathon is the most difficult of all races as it is the ultimate test of fortitude, where sportsmen can rely on own muscles and fighting spirit only. A professional marathoner runs at an average speed of 20 kilometers per hour, which is twice more than the speed of reindeer migration, and it’s being done without any special equipment or tools.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is the international governing body for the sport of athletics, which ratifies world records in the marathon. So, who are they, the fastest people in the world?

The World’s Fastest Marathoners: Men

1. Dennis Kimetto from Kenya was recognized as the best marathon runner: he broke the previous world record in Berlin, on September 28, 2014, with his winning 2 hours, 2 minutes, and 57 seconds. Dennis grew up in a family of athletes, one day he had to quit doing sports and start helping his parents on the farm instead because of financial issues. But when watching the broadcasts of the Sydney Olympics races, the future athlete realized that he must devote his life to running. Interesting fact: Dennis Kimetto could probably beat a horse in a 26.2-miler.

2. Kenenisa Bekele is a 34-year-old world champion from Ethiopia. He won the Berlin Marathon in 2016 (2 hours, 3 minutes, and 3 seconds), moving Emmanuel Mutai (Kenya) down to the fourth place from the second one, where he had been with his 2:03:13 since the Berlin Marathon in 2014. Kenenisa is also a repeated world champion (2003-2009), three-time Olympic champion (in Athens and Beijing), twice world record holder at a distance of 5 and 10 km. The athlete says that everything began in childhood when he had to run to school, which was 10 km far from his house!

3. Eliud Kipchoge is the athlete from Kenya, who took the third place in the rate, which previously belonged to his countryman Patrick Makau (2:03:38 in Berlin, 2011). Eliud took part and won the Rotterdam and Chicago Marathons in 2014, beat his personal record at the Berlin Marathon (5 seconds faster) and first appeared at the London Marathon in 2015, won a gold medal at Rio 2016 Olympics. But only at the London Marathon 2016, he became the 1st with a track record and a new personal record of 2 hours, 3 minutes, and 5 seconds. Read the rest of this entry →