As if Henrik Larsson would run 100 meters in 9.85 against a headwind? When Andreas Almgren came from behind this morning and won the Barcelona Half Marathon in 59:23, he was ten seconds off the European record. And two seconds from the man who ran the distance in 57:32, the previous world record. All in strong wind. Is the opening, rhetorical question lame? Andreas was pleased to note:
– You have had worse debuts.
27 July 2014 Andreas Almgren won bronze at the Junior World Championships. At 800 meters. He was then seen as someone who had definitely left 400 meters behind. Barely ten years later, he becomes the first Swede to run the half-marathon under an hour. He now holds the national records for 1500, 3000 (outdoor and indoor), 5000 meters, 10 km road and half marathon.
This morning he made the obvious, yet smart decision not to be at the front when Mitja Marató Barcelona started in winds of around seven seconds/metre.
– I tighten the bow and lie down at the back.
It was still a bold tactic considering the merits that the runners in the tight group had in comparison to the debutant, who, however, after 27:20 in the mile the other week, no longer had to wear the stamp “the previous 800-meter runner”.
Early on, the runners turned straight into the north-west wind and the second kilometer would be the slowest of the race for the Tour Berger: 3:01. Andreas came directly from several weeks at high altitude, which makes it difficult to know how the training times should be translated at sea level. But he speculated around 59:30. After four kilometers the course turns to three straight kilometers towards the Arc de Triomf and with the wind at your back came the fastest kilometer. 2:41 a.m. It is not normal to have a 20 second gap for a tight pack trying to keep pace, led by a hare.
The wind did not stop Andreas
Now it flowed really well for Andreas and even when turning back upwind after 13 kilometers the bunch didn’t lose much speed. With 42:13 at 15, it was not only clear that it would be a Swedish record, but also that it would be a time under an hour.
– I ran smart and got some backs to walk on. I thought I handled the wind well, Andreas told Runners World’s Anders Szalkai after the race.
And when everyone was having a hard time, fighting the sea breeze after 17 kilometers, Andreas started picking off one after another who had tried to hang with leader Kibiwott Kandie, the man whose world record of 57:32 was beaten by a second by Jacob Kiplimo two years ago. At the end, Andreas clearly ran the fastest. The last scant 1100 meters should have taken 2:55, if the results service is to be trusted, 13 seconds faster than Kandie, and an incomprehensible average of under 2:40!
How much is the race worth?
59:23, two seconds behind Kandie, is ten seconds off Julien Wander’s European record. No other European has run faster. Among other things, Andreas gets past Mo Farah’s old European record (59:32) and beats Sondre Moen’s Nordic record by 25 seconds. Napoleon Solomon’s Swedish record breaks by almost two minutes.
It becomes even more impressive when compared to what the competitors were running on today. In addition to 57:32, Kandie has five more races under 59 minutes, including 57:40 with which he won Valencia last fall. He has run the mile in 26:50. A handful of the guys behind Andreas have run before in 58-59 minutes. The next European can be found two and a half minutes later! Briton Marc Scott, who ran 5000 under 13 minutes, makes his debut like Andreas, but does it in 62:06.
No matter how you twist and turn it, Andreas Almgren’s performance in the current conditions is the best race a Swede has run in the 2000s. I would stretch to parity with Kjell Erik Ståhl’s fourth place in the first WC marathon – which of course had a sharper field – and then you have to continue to dig down to the Olympics in Montreal, when a Lidingö resident won gold in hurdles on a world record.
Back to the track
Even though there is a half marathon on the EC program in Rome in June, Andreas is now focusing on shorter distances again. The tooth is not that bloody.
– You have had worse debuts. It’s quite nice to run on the road. But now I have done my tour. Now the full focus is on the summer and the track, he stated with the aim of qualifying for the Olympics in the 10,000 meters. Andreas will do that on “The Ten”, in California, on March 16
/Lorenzo Nesi
The Strava statistics invite deep and wide-eyed analyses
