At 23:00 tonight, the athletics whoopee of the Tokyo Olympics will come to a close, 800km to the north of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium, as 106 athletes take to the streets of Sapporo to race 26.2 miles. Yes, it is the marathon. 

Featuring a stellar lineup including Eliud Kipchoge, reigning World Champion Lelisa Desisa and 2020 London Marathon winner Shura Kitata, there is telescopic for fireworks. The line up moreover includes three Brits in Callum Hawkins, Ben Connor and Chris Thompson. 

Sunday will be an Olympic debut for Ben, a second Olympic marathon for Callum and a second Games for Chris without racing over 10,000m in 2012. They each have their own story and goals, and I was lucky unbearable to exclusively spoke to all three; Callum and Ben from Sapporo, and Chris surpassing he left for Japan. 

Championship Performer

It is pearly to say that Callum Hawkins knows how to unhook his weightier at a championships. He has finished ninth at the Rio Olympics, fourth at the London World Championships and fourth then at the Doha World Championships, just six seconds shy of a medal in a race he was leading with two kilometres to go. 

It’s been a relatively quiet year for the Scotsman, having make-believe as a pacemaker at  the Olympic Trials in Kew Gardens (his place in Tokyo pre-selected in advance) surpassing running a 69:18 half marathon three days later. It has not been the perfect build up, but conviction has been growing as race day approaches:

“I’m feeling pretty good, I’ve washed-up some little tune up sessions the last few days, a few minutes effort, and it’s been pretty good. My build up has been going ok, a few niggles here and there so maybe not quite the weightier build up I’ve overly had, but I finger in pretty good shape. Since coming to Japan things have been turning around, so I’m fairly happy with how things have been going”.

A step onto the podium?

His worthiness to perform when it matters most is not in doubt, particularly pursuit those hugely impressive fourth placed finishes at the last two editions of the World Championships. I asked Callum whether improving his finishing position to take a spot on the podium is something firmly in his mind for Sunday’s race: 

“It’s going to be tough and all dependent on the conditions. Since Doha I have been gearing up to do whatever I can to try and get a medal. I’ve been ninth surpassing at the Olympics, so I’ve been in the top ten, so the next stage would be to try and go for a medal.

Compared to the World Championships, it’s going to be a much stronger field. I could put in a similar performance [to Doha] and finish outside the top ten. It’s going to be pretty tough, and really depends on how things go. Hopefully there will be a couple of people that will underestimate it and wreak a bit of havoc and that will unshut up opportunities”.

Ben Connor & Callum Hawkins @ Corrida de Houilles 2017. Photo credit: Tom Craggs

Turning up the Heat

Handily, Callum mentioned the conditions surpassing I did. He unfortunately struggled in the heat at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, collapsing at the side of the road in incredibly distressing scenes on TV for those watching at home.

However, this was something he worked on significantly in the run up to Doha, towers a make shift temperature room in his shed. The lessons learned from both, he feels, will provide invaluable wits in Sapporo:

“Yeah, I definitely learned a lot in those two. I think when you squint at it that the conditions could be pretty similar to Gold Coast. With Doha, the only thing was the humidity luckily dropped for us compared to the women, but I think a big factor here will be the sun and whether that will be out or not. 

It is something that they don’t mention when they talk well-nigh forecasts, they just mention the temperature and the very humidity, but the sun probably adds five to ten degrees depending on where you are”.

Childhood Dreams

Our careers may have gone lanugo quite variegated avenues since, but sixteen years ago Callum and I stood on the same start line, as 12 year olds, at the 2005 Mini London Marathon. Like most people at that age, we both had diaper dreams of going to the Olympics, but only one of us had those dreams realised. 

Callum’s philosophy ways it’s not something he has thought too much about:

“I unchangingly wanted to make an Olympics but, I still can’t do it now, I can’t think that far ahead! I let my dad do all the thinking and I just focus on what I’m doing tomorrow or what I’m having for dinner! It’s both a expletive and a blessing, it ways I don’t get too hung up on things”.

Missing Japan 

Callum has fond memories of Japan, something you’d might expect for someone who’s two fastest half marathons were run in the country at the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon. COVID has limited the opportunities for those at the Olympics to wits the country, something Callum particularly feels:

“We’ve just been stuck in a hotel, we can only really go to training and when to the hotel. It’s a real shame as I’ve been to Japan a couple of times and it’s a place I unchangingly enjoy, it’s just a unconfined place. I’m missing out on trying all the supplies again, the supplies is possibly the weightier part of Japan! 

Hopefully all things go well and can have a big triumph after, a big triumph on the plane and an plane worthier one when when home!”.

Here is hoping we can all join in a big triumph by the end of the race!

Photo: David Belshaw

Olympic Debutant

Not only is Ben Connor well-nigh to make his Olympic debut, it is only his third race over the loftiness in his career. That might sound concerning on first sight, expressly given the tough conditions expected, but a notable fact for you – for Peres Jepchirchir and Molly Seidel, the gold and statue medallists in the women’s marathon, Sapporo was the third marathon of their careers. Wits does not unchangingly win. 

He ran the qualifier in his debut over 26.2 miles, at last year’s London Marathon in what was a superb performance in mightily unpleasant conditions, to navigate the line in 2:11:20, ten seconds superiority of the qualifying standard. It was quite a race for him:

“It was an experience, that’s for sure. In went in there with the standard as the aim, anything under 2:11:30 was just what is was, and I just got under with the ten seconds. It was mad really, considering the marathon is variegated to any other event, it was something I’d never really experienced surpassing in terms of the pure fatigue towards the end and nothing stuff in the legs. They were completely empty by well-nigh 25 miles, up to there I was still ok but without that I was just hanging on for dear life and psoriasis wideness the line!

It was certainly an experience, but I got that one out of the way which was a big thing. I was fortunate to just knock under the time, considering if it had been eleven seconds slower I think I would have been very disappointed”.

Racing well in a Championship style

This meant, for the Olympic Trials at Kew Gardens in March, his job was simple yet moreover the one with the most at stake; finish in the top two and, regardless of time, a ticket for the plane to Japan will be his. That was no easy ask, as anyone who has run a marathon knows, and Ben took me through the race and emotions that followed.

“Kew was weird, considering I felt like a lot of people were saying going into the race that I had it the easiest considering I had the time and without Johnny Mellor unfortunately pulled out it was only me going into the race with the time.

Pressure is a good thing, so that’s not bad, but I felt like all the pressure was on me to unhook on the day. But with the marathon, surpassing you write-up everyone else you’ve got to write-up the distance, so it was not just a specimen of stuff in the top two, I had to run 26.2 miles first and I knew how I felt in London.

It was a relief increasingly than anything else, that’s what I felt when I crossed the finish line. It was a weird emotion, but it was definitely a relief rather than an firsthand splash of excitement”. 

Ben’s speed on the road is no fluke or surprise, with his 60:55 for third in last year’s Antrim Coast Half Marathon (behind Mo Farah and Marc Scott) putting him fifth on the British all-time list. These were backed up with 61:34 at the Barcelona Half Marathon and 28:10 at the 10K Valencia Ibercaja older in 2020.

Photo: Keith McClure

Race Goals

After periods of training in Spain and Font Romeu, this is something Ben is looking to take into Sunday’s race:

“I finger in really good shape, but we’ll just have to see as the conditions here are very variegated to the two races I did in London! That’s a whole new factor that we’ve got to squint at but I’ve got myself in good shape and that’s the main thing. 

It sounds really wearisome but there’s no targets as such. Obviously I’ve got some things in my throne of what I’ll be happy with and what I won’t be happy with, but firstly it’s just getting round and seeing how I do that. I want to finish as upper up as I possibly can, but I need to get through the conditions. 

As I said before, for the marathon you’ve just got to write-up the loftiness and that’s plane worthier here considering you’ve got the loftiness and the conditions. Getting through that to halfway or plane 20 miles feeling as good as you possibly can will be good, but I know you’re not going to finger fantastic no matter how fast or easy you go out”. 

Whilst he may be playing his cards tropical to his chest in terms of race goals and targets, Ben was not shy to stress how he will make the most of the opportunity in front of him:

“I am just looking forward to getting onto the start line, racing and putting on an Olympic vest and Olympic number. Obviously it’s going to be a world matriculation field, it’s going to be such upper quality and an incredible field, so just to stand on that start line with those guys and think ‘I vest here’. I want to go out and make the most of it and enjoy the opportunity”. 

Age is Just a Number

It is pearly to say Chris Thompson is no stranger to the international stage. He first donned a British vest at the World Junior Championships 23 years ago and, since then, has raced on the track at the 2012 Olympics, three European Championships, a Commonwealth Games with a 5000m and 10,000m double, European XC Championships and a host of junior-level competitions.

Until THAT race in Kew Gardens, his marathon debut at London in 2014 remained his PB and the only time he had run under the Olympic qualifying time. 

You don’t need me to tell you what happened on that Friday morning in Kew, other than in winning the race in a new lifetime weightier of 2:10.52, Chris guaranteed his spot at his second Olympics. It was one of the weightier races – and post-race celebrations – that I have overly seen. There is no one largest to run you through the race than the man himself. 

“There’s kind of three phases to the race. I was still managing my own emotions, thirty minutes in I was still trying to wifely myself down. I hadn’t had a nonflexible session since Theo’s lineage and I was still riding in that adrenaline that I needed to come lanugo from. 

Once I realised that the race was a bit hot for me, I knew I needed to run my own race, and I was watching the Olympics disappear [as the lead group moved ahead]. I didn’t finger particularly in control, I can’t tenancy them, I can only tenancy myself. At that point I said there’s nothing I can do, I just have to get myself through the next hour as weightier I can and we’ll see where the land lies. 

Running your own race

There was a moment just surpassing Callum Hawkins dropped out I could see a gap between him and the athletes, and that was the first sign. I knew I wasn’t running slowly and it was the first time I though, oh, something’s happening. Within five minutes I was on the when of them and it just escalated. 

The speed in which it turned I think widow to my conviction of, wow, I can do this, considering they came when so quickly. Considering it happened so suddenly it was like I was riding this high, and then I just turned in my mind.

It was one of the most ruthless mindsets I’ve overly entered in my life; every visualization I made just seemed to work, it was a surreal kind of utopian moment of the fitness I had was working, I worked the race well, I could tenancy the race and I could see the Olympics rhadamanthine a possibility. I had no doubt in my mind in the last ten minutes. 

I refused to winnow I’d washed-up it until when I started pumping the arms. I was just thinking ‘just get there!’. I still get emotional thinking well-nigh it, it’s nonflexible to not go when to there and not well up. It just felt untellable to do it, but I did it. I can’t go there without feeling emotional well-nigh it”.

If you squint thoughtfully you can see all three of our marathon runners in here. Credit: Nigel Bramley

Redemption

After a disappointing performance in London in 2012, Chris is fully single-minded to ensuring his second Olympic wits is as positive as it can be. 

“2012 was weird considering I truly believed I was going to medal that year. I was yoyo and trying to, and that came with a lot of stress. I got injured and it became increasingly of a burden. This time I am unswayable to enjoy it. 

I can’t wait to get out and race now. I’m starting to get those chills of ‘wow, I’m going to compete at the Olympics’. It’s amazing. It’s variegated now considering I am a dad, I’m not under any illusions, I am very much there as an underdog and I am going to do my weightier to enjoy it, but if there’s an opportunity mark my words I am going to take it”.

One of the nicest guys in the sport, who I hope gets the race that he deserves. You can watch all three run at 23:00 Saturday night, UK time.