Stunning victory for Shvetsov at Comrades Marathon
Posted June 17th, 2007 at 4:32 PM by Adam Jacobs
Section: News & Results, Marathons
Size doesn’t matter, at least not in the Comrades [Marathon].
Tall, strongly-muscled, long-striding Russian Leonid Shvetsov, 38, finally disproved the belief that big men can’t win the “down” Comrades when he shattered Bruce Fordyce’s venerable 21-year-old record in the ultramarathon between Pietermaritzburg and Durban by more than three minutes in what second placer Grigoriy Murzin described as the greatest ultradistance performance of all time over 89.3 km (55.5 mi.).
Shvetsov, who placed 13th in the 2004 Olympic Marathon and is 1.85m (6′ 4″) tall and weighs around 72 kg (158 lbs), finished in 5:20:49 to win by nine minutes, 31 seconds –-the biggest winning margin since Fordyce beat Mark Page by 10:46 in 1988. Shvetsov, who took the lead for good with more than 33 km to run, said afterwards that he felt the record could go soon after he ran through halfway of the 89.3 km distance. At halfway in Drummond he was still almost two minutes behind leader Petros Sosibo, who would eventually fade to 48th place.
Read the rest at our partner site: TrailFit.com
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Tags: Bruce Fordyce, comrades marathon, Drummond, Durban, Farwa Mentoor, Grigoriy Murzi, Kingsmead Stadium, Leonid Shvetsov, Mark Page, Mncedisi Mkhize, Petros Sosibo, Pietermaritzburg, Tatyana Zhirkova, ultradistance, ultramarathon
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