World Athletics Championships: Lisa Weightman matches best marathon result in Budapest
Marathon veteran Lisa Weightman has bettered a result she ran 14 years ago to spark optimism she can be a threat at the Paris Olympics.
Olympics
Don't miss out on the headlines from Olympics. Followed categories will be added to My News.
An equal best finish at a major championship by Lisa Weightman at the age of 44 has her optimistic she has more to give in Paris next year.
Weightman ran a controlled race early in the baking hot conditions of the world championships marathon before charging late to finish 16th in 2hr30min50sec.
It was a one spot improvement on her first world championships back in 2009 in Berlin and equal to her finishing position at the London 2012 Olympics.
“It was really tough out there, the conditions were quite brutal but I’m actually really happy with my performance,” Weightman said.
“It wasn’t a top eight but it was top 16 and one place better than I did at these championships long ago in 2009 so it’s great that so many years later I’m still able to perform.”
Weightman is aiming to create history at the Paris Olympics by becoming Australia’s first track and field athlete to compete in five Olympics.
She plans to run another marathon in December with the competition for spots for Paris hotting up with up to half-a-dozen candidates.
“Hopefully I can come back and prepare for that and try to run fast there,” Weightman said. “I tried a few new things (in training) and that paid off here. It was a much better performance than the Tokyo Olympics (26th) so I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.”
Sarah Klein was the next best Aussie in 41st position with Isobel Batt-Doyle coming 43rd.
It was an Ethiopian quinella with Amane Beriso surging over the last of the four 10km laps to take gold in 2:24.23sec.
Defending champion Gotytom Gebreslase (2:24.34sec) won silver with Morocco’s Fatima Gardadi winning her country’s first-ever medal in the event with bronze (2:25.17sec).
HUGE TWEAK PUTS VETERAN ON CUSP OF HISTORY
The oldest member of the Australian team is taking the biggest risk of her career in pursuit of Olympic history.
Lisa Weightman is back running the marathon at a world championships, 14 years after her first in Berlin in 2009 which had come 12 months after she’d made her Australian Olympic debut in Beijing.
The 44-year-old mother says she is competing in Budapest to try to snare a top-eight finish which would almost certainly guarantee her a spot for the Paris Olympics next year.
If she can do it, Weightman would be Australia’s first track and field athlete to compete at five Olympic Games.
Rather than play down her age like some athletes do when they hit the 40s, the Melbourne runner couldn’t be prouder of her birth certificate.
“I am really proud of it,” Weightman says.
“I have struggled a lot throughout my career, as a 20-year-old being told I was never going to make it, that I would never be good enough.
“So to be 44 and, well, I’m still here and I might make five Olympics and create history by being the first track and field athlete (in Australia) to do that.
“That makes me quite proud and positive because hopefully I can show other women that they can do amazing things well into their 40s and potentially 50s.
“If we have the right approach, the right support team, we can really do amazing things. I’m quite proud of my age and don’t mind mentioning it and celebrating it.”
A shift in the way Weightman trained after missing selection for last year’s Commonwealth Games has been the basis for the decision to compete in Budapest.
In July last year she finished second in the Gold Coast Marathon and then three months later ran in the Berlin Marathon, finishing 15th.
Then she showed her superwoman powers by running a personal best 2hr 23.15sec to finish fourth in the Osaka Marathon on February 26 this year and then backed up a week later to run in the Tokyo Marathon (2:31.42)
“The training has been very different for me in the last two years since the Olympics (in Tokyo),” Weightman said.
“We decided given my age and my experience, we are sort of at the stage now that I’m not concerned about injuries whereas in my junior years I was plagued with so many injuries.
“It was always a bit of a balance to decide whether to jump into 200km week type training, especially with the old shoes, you just didn’t recover the same in the old shoes than what you can do.
“So we thought after the Olympics (she finished 26th), if I am going to keep going then I’m going to push the boundaries and see where it takes me. We have done that in a very controlled way and it has paid off in the last 12 months.
“We are in a situation where we are keen to take some risks in training and see where they play out and what sort of performance I can do. It’s exciting because everything is a bit different and this is a good rehearsal for next year.”
Weightman is as qualified as anyone to discuss the improvements in footwear for the marathon in recent years which has elevated performances dramatically.
She still has the shoes she ran her first marathon in back in London in 2008.
“If you are not someone who has run in both eras you probably don’t realise the difference but if I look back at my first marathon in 2008 in London, and look back to the shoes I wore then, they don’t really give much compared to the cushioning of our current range of footwear,” Weightman said.
“The difference is more about how you recover and at the back end of the marathon your quads don’t feel as beaten up.
“I pulled up amazingly well after Osaka whereas I couldn’t do that (run again a week later) after previous marathons, it would have taken me four weeks to really recover.
“So that was four to six weeks out of the year where you were just recovering whereas now people can back up so much easier.
“The other factor is the training, these shoes give you so much cushioning that you can handle more training which you couldn’t create necessarily without injury risk in the past.
“It’s like having new tyres versus worn tyres, you’re going to have a more efficient car right?”
Weightman says her life balance has been one of the keys to her longevity. She works full-time as an associate partner at IBM while also raising her eight-year-old son, Peter.
“From a young age I have taken a path that is not the traditional path for a track and field athlete,” she said.
“And for me that’s why I am still going because it has been a bit more of a hobby.
“I guess from a mental health perspective and a financial stability perspective, we don’t have to quit athletics early because we need to start real life or start a new career.”
Currently Weightman and 46-year-old Sinead Diver are at the top of the list of Paris Olympic hopefuls but there are plenty circling including three-time Olympic steeplechase finalist Genevieve Gregson who has stepped up to the marathon.
That irony isn’t lost on Weightman who will be running her 23rd marathon in Budapest.
“It’s pretty crazy, if someone told me back in 2008 I would be still doing this at 44 I would have thought they’d lost their minds.”
More Coverage
Originally published as World Athletics Championships: Lisa Weightman matches best marathon result in Budapest
New coaches to lead rowing into future after Paris disaster
Rowing Australia has installed new men’s and women’s head coaches to lead its program to the LA and Brisbane Games after its worst Olympic return in more than 30 years.
Healy takes Olympic legend to task over commentary slight
Swimming legend Ian Thorpe has found himself in the crosshair’s of Australian cricket great Alyssa Healy – who has taken umbrage at a piece of commentary from the Paris Olympics.