Sunday’s Olomouc Half Marathon in the Czech Republic was supposed to be a duel between marathon world record holder Wilson Kipsang and Chicago Marathon course record holder Dennis Kimetto. But in the latest instance of the rabbit stealing the show, Geoffrey Ronoh, a man with only one professional road race to his credit who'd been enlisted by Kipsang to set the pace through the first 10K, stayed in the race until the end and won in a course record 1:00:17, as Race Results Weekly reports.
“I have been training with Wilson Kipsang even before Olomouc,” said Ronoh, whose only previous professional finish was a sixth-place 2:15:52 in a marathon in India in 2013. “In coming here, he told me to pace make as fast as I could to make 28:20 [for the first 10K]. I achieved it, running 28:15. After that, it was if I feel strong at the end, I had to finish."
“I knew through our training that he was very strong,” Kipsang told the BBC about Ronoh.
Kipsang came to Olomouc after setting a London Marathon course record of 2:04:29 on April 13. Eight days later, Kimetto failed to finish the Boston Marathon. And while Kimetto did move up to finish third on Sunday in 1:01:42, he was not a contender in the early stages, as Kipsang, Ronoh and fellow Kenyan Nicholas Bor were on world record pace through 5K.
By 8K, Kipsang and Ronoh were alone in front. In training, says Ronoh, “I have been giving [Kipsang] tough challenges. On long runs, I used to be with him until the last kilometer and that is where I feared him because he had a hard kick. But more than that, I also knew that he is a just a man like me."
Ronoh slowed a bit at 15K but, as he said later, "when I gave [Kipsang] a chance to go past me, he stayed a few steps behind. That is when I learned that I was capable of winning.” Ronoh opened a gap of 40 meters, and though the pace slowed in the final 2K, he stayed in first.
“In the end, I appreciate that he was there because without him, we would not have run a good time," said Kipsang.
This isn't the first time that a hired pacemaker has stayed in a road race and won. One of the first highly publicised instances came at the 1994 Los Angeles Marathon, where American Paul Pilkington emerged as champion. Simon Biwott, booked to pace through 30K of the 2000 Berlin Marathon, finished the entire 26.2 miles in first place, and Ben Kimondiu pulled the same surprise at the 2001 Chicago Marathon.
As Race Results Weekly notes, Joseph Ngeny was set to pace the 2006 Dubai Marathon through 30K but felt so strong at 27K that he asked his manager, in an accompanying pace car, if he could finish. Given the green light, he stayed in the race and won.
But a victory over the world’s best marathoner by an unknown wearing a bib that read “PACE MEN” is arguably a bigger shock than any of those previous instances.
