- Women's marathon. 28 retreats and the slowest champion in history
Marta Galimany appears in the hall of the Ezdan hotel in Doha in the morning, a few hours after the "toughest" marathon of her life, and she looks shattered, dark circles fall to the ground, her cheekbones are underlined, but she smiles and says: "I'm happy, very happy." “From the beginning it was a survival exercise rather than a race, and that had to be understood. I left at a very, very conservative pace [became outside the top 50] and, seeing the rest, I thought that maybe it had happened to me, but what is going on. If you tried to run normal, as if nothing happened, you did not finish, that is clear », points out the sixteenth classified - already with ticket for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games - after spending a night completely sailing and serum based.
Despite the exhaustion, his face was the cheerful image of an unhealthy marathon that demonstrated the irresponsibility of the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) for organizing a World Cup in a country where the routine is already complicated.
In the absence of the 50 kilometers march of Sunday morning, the 20 kilometers march of Sunday and Friday and the male marathon next Saturday, the scenes caused by the heat and humidity during the women's marathon were already enough to sentence those who took money from Qatar not only for alleged corruption - the designation is being investigated in France - but also for lack of humanity. Ambulances up and down, 28 retired athletes, an overflowed medical center, a hospitalized, the slowest champion in history ... «The humidity killed you, I could not breathe. A group of leaders met and decided that the World Cups would be made here, but now they are sitting there with air conditioning or sleeping in their hotel. It has been disrespectful, ”said Belarusian Volha Mazuronak , who finished fifth.
As she indicated, the president of the IAAF, Sebastian Coe , who was vice president of the researcher Lamine Diack during the assignment, watched the panorama in an empty guest box and, at one point, ran to look for the president of the organizing committee, Dahlan Al Hamad , to share with him. They looked worried: perhaps they valued if it had been appropriate to kick off or even if asphalt tests should be taking place elsewhere.
European alternative
Because both options were contemplated. In the previous months, two European cities, one of them Valencia, offered to host the World asphalt tests and the day before the marathon, already tested the conditions of the test -33 degrees and 80% humidity, with a thermal sensation that was around 40 degrees-, the suspension or cancellation was estimated. But, in the end, impossible: you had to run at midnight in the Doha sauna yes or yes.
“There is an international medical agreement by which it is recommended not to compete above the 28 degrees measured with the WBGT thermometer that counts heat and humidity, and during the marathon, according to the IAAF itself, there were 29 degrees. It ran beyond that limit, the conditions were very hard and everything was in the hands of the athletes themselves, their preparation and their precaution. Luckily, there were no regrets of serious consequences, ”says Christophe Ramírez , the director of medical services for the Spanish Federation, who still keeps his guard high for what might happen during these days.
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