Why the sudden slowdown in Irish marathon running?

“Get ready for the show!”

This teasing declaration by Kelvin Kiptum in advance of Sunday’s Chicago marathon is no doubt sweet music to the ears of the race organisers, less so for anyone with more modest running ambitions than the Kenyan runner.

Such as trying to qualify for next year’s Paris Olympic marathon.

That race along a circular route from Hôtel de Ville in Paris to Versailles and back may still be 10 months away, but the race to qualify has turned into a sprint. No one is yet giving up the chase, it’s just for many Irish hopefuls the race may already be over.

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Kiptum alone presents evidence as to why: still only 23 (if you trust that, among other things), he will be making just his third marathon start in Chicago, having won in Valencia last December in 2:01:52 and then in London last April in 2:01:25 – the second fastest time ever, behind Eliud Kipchoge’s 2:01:09 world record. As last month’s Berlin marathon proved, global standards are speeding up continually; nine men finished inside 2:05, a record for a single race, likewise the eight women who finished Berlin inside 2:20.

Raising some eyebrows too, the fastest woman in Berlin was Tigst Assefa from Ethiopia, taking the world record down to 2:11:53. As pointed out by Sonia O’Sullivan afterwards, “faster than any Irish man has run this year, or last year, or the year before”.

This wasn’t meant in any disrespectful sense, it was just a statement of fact. “Part of my fear is that Irish men and women are being left so far behind, perhaps feeling so hopelessly far off the pace, that they may never catch up,” O’Sullivan said. “It certainly seems that way for now and for plenty of other countries too.”

Impossible as it is to measure, the new era of super-shoes, post-Rio 2016, has undeniably recalibrated men’s and women’s marathon times. This was reflected in the Paris qualifying standards announced by World Athletics last December. As with all 48 events, they are without exception the most difficult in Olympic history.

It doesn’t help that there’s a slightly reduced athlete quota compared with Tokyo, down from 1,900 to 1,810 (they had to make room for skateboarding and break dancing, didn’t they?). After a qualifying standard of 2:11:30 for Tokyo, the men’s standard for Paris went down to 2:08:10. For the women, 2:29:30 would have automatically made Tokyo, whereas 2:26:50 is the time for Paris.

That marathon qualifying window opened last November, and no Irish man or woman has run anywhere even close to it, and none is near close in ranking either. Of the men, Ryan Creech is fastest this year with his 2:13:03 from Seville in February, Conor Duffy next best with his 2:17:51 in Berlin. Aoife Cooke is fastest of the women with her 2:36:50 from Rotterdam in April, Jessica Craig next best with her 2:38:44 from Seville in February.

More pressingly, World Athletics will announce the first 64 of the marathon quotas both for men and women (out of a total of 80 for each, strictly three per country) on January 30th, based on times or ranking,,The remaining 16 will be determined by the same dual qualifying pathway before the window closes on April 30th.

Trace the Olympic trail and Irish runners have a good record in achieving marathon qualification, Athens in 2004 the last time we had no representation at all, neither men nor women.

In the 12 years since Mark Kenneally ran a qualifying time for the 2012 London Olympic marathon, with his 2:13:55 in Amsterdam in October 2011 well inside the then required 2:15:00, he’s seen standards consistently race ahead, even before the super-shoes came along (and if only he ever had them).

Now, in his newly-appointed role as performance endurance lead with Athletics Ireland, Kenneally is partly charged with bringing Irish marathon standards back up the speed, and he doesn’t deny it’s a daunting race.

“Look, these are very, very challenging standards, but at the same time they do reflect where marathon running is at now,” he says. “There’s no getting away from how much things have moved on the last five years, 2:03, 2:04 consistently for the men, then that 2:11:53 for the women in Berlin.

“So we just have to get our heads around that. There is still potential to qualify for Paris with a 2:10, 2:11 maybe, on a quota, with additional points. It’s very hard to see anyone qualifying slower than that.

“But 15, 16 years ago, we also went through a lull, Irish men were struggling to break 2:20. Then there was a good resurgence, thanks to the Dublin marathon mission. So mindsets will have to change again, that’s part of this role, not to get more people running 2:08, just making incremental improvements.”

Kenneally never stepped away from running. He is the co-owner of The Performance physio and fitness clinic in Celbridge, and still runs every day. His new role covers from 800m up to the marathon, and while there’s clearly an upward trajectory in the middle-distance events – Irish records set in men’s and women’s 1,500m this summer – there’s no disguising the downward trajectory in the marathon.

“Athletes know the challenge now, how fast they need to run. That’s what improves things too. Like I had to run inside 2:15, what if I had to run inside 2:12? When a gun is put to your head like that, you can sometimes pull out even more.”

For the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, three Irish men qualified, Stephen Scullion, Kevin Seaward and Paul Pollock, with Scullion running well inside the 2:11:30 standard with his 2:09:49 in London in 2020.

Fionnuala McCormack qualified for Tokyo with her 2:26:47 in Chicago in 2019, again well inside the then 2:29:30 standard, as did Cooke with her 2:28:36, in Cheshire in April 2021.

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Scullion is certainly still eying up Paris qualification, McCormack too, and there’s a chance others might come into the reckoning at the Dublin marathon at the end of this month, which offers additional ranking points, since it is doubling as the national championship.

“I still firmly believe we are a country that produces really, really talented athletes,” Kenneally says. “Support structures are getting better all the time too, and as I’m getting to know athletes, no one is shying away from the hard training, the hard work. It’s always been that way, but it’s about timing that effort correctly.

“Again, I’d be hopeful our marathon standards can come up, whether that means Paris qualification, that’s not the be-all and end-all, even if it feels that way right now.”