The Arc de Triomf The Barcelona Marathon becomes something like a family reception center, where a large representation of friends, couples or colleagues from the club or gym wait for the hard-working people on the asphalt to encourage them, give them some gel or simply water, yell at them until they become hoarse and, above all, capture for eternity and with their mobile phones the passage through kilometer 36, where the ‘wailing wall’ appears and where the finish line, next to the Venetian Towers of the Plaza de Espanya, seems more distant than ever, although the halfway point of the test has already passed a while ago.
When the race leadersall of them African long distance runners, mostly Kenyans and Ethiopians, with some Ugandans, pass through this place Barcelona is still having breakfast and the Paseo de Sant Joan shows the wounds of the night war, more and more bottle in one of the star areas in the ‘ movida’ of the Catalan capital on weekends.
A Kenyan featured
Passes in first position and outstanding, a Kenyan, Mike Boytradiant, with an extraordinary technique, arms and legs perfectly attuned, and still unaware that a little further on, right at Paral.lel, the man with the mallet will arrive, the one who punishes marathon runners and cyclists, with the dreaded pájara, when little stars are seen and the body betrays the mind.
🔵RECORDS HISTORICS🔵
Men’s Podi ZMB22
🥇 Yihuniligne Adane 2:05’53
🥈 Gebru Redahgne 2:05’58
🥉 Kebede Wami 2:06’03Women’s Podi ZMB22
🥇 Masaret Dekebo 2:23’11
🥈 Ayantu Kumela 2:25’00
🥉 Zenebu Fikadu 2:25’11#ZurichMaratoBCN22#AMagicExperience#TimeToRingTheBell pic.twitter.com/uwxnRt00Ip— Zurich Barcelona Marathon (@maratobarcelona) May 8, 2022
The pace of the African runners is so exaggerated that, half an hour after their passage, with the female leaders, also Ethiopians and Kenyans in between, when popular athletes arrive who look more human, it almost feels like they’re walking instead of running. But they, at least, dispute the Barcelona marathon with a double heat: the nice one, the one of the shouts of friends, relatives and curious, and the feared one, May is not the best month of the year to dispute a race of these characteristics ; one of the reasons why this 2021 only a little more than 8,000 participants25% women, signed up for the race.
The effects of the pandemic
But it couldn’t be in March, because popular athletics in Spain still ran with the side effects of the pandemic and because it was not possible to do it before due to the absurd coincidence with other official races of the athletic calendar of the Spanish Athletics Federation.
However, despite the decline in participants, the Barcelona Marathon he was once again in luck and demonstrated the tremendous success of diverting the race to Calle de Sepúlveda and thus avoiding the endless straight along Paral.lel, from its start, after passing Colón, to Plaza de Espanya.
The winners
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For this reason, in each edition the record of the test is being broken, both in men and women, to the point that it can be said, without wishing to be mistaken, that the previous marks are being pulverized, as happened this Sunday, with two podiums, male and female, completely Ethiopian, long-distance runners who are gradually gaining weight and defeating their Kenyan rivals in the marathons.
Yihuniligne Adane stopped the stopwatch at 2 hours, 5 minutes and 52 seconds and lowered the absolute record of the Barcelona marathon by 11 seconds. Much more exaggerated was the female record. The winner, Meseret Dekebocrossed the finish line 2.23.09 hours after taking the start and lowering the time of 2021, that was only six months ago, in 44 seconds; simply amazing.