# Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon

The men's marathon at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on 24 August at 7:30am in Beijing, ending in the Beijing National Stadium. It was (as of today) the last time in Summer Olympics history that the start and/or finish of the men's marathon route was located inside the Olympic Stadium. Ninety-five athletes from 56 nations competed. The winner of the event was Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya, who set an Olympic record in the time of two hours, six minutes, and 32 seconds. It was Kenya's first victory in the men's marathon. Morocco won its first medal in the event since 1960, with Jaouad Gharib's silver. Tsegay Kebede of Ethiopia took bronze.

## Summary

It began in the early morning instead of the traditional late at night start. Through 10k, a group of 8 was at front. They were all broken down to five at 20k. At the front was Eritrean Yonas Kifle, Ethiopian Deriba Merga, Kenya's Martin Lel and Sammy Wanjiru, and Moroccan Jaouad Gharib. over the next 10k Deriba Merga started to press the pace, dropping Lel and Kifle. Just after 30k, Sammy Wanjiru attacked Deriba Merga who would crack and fade out of the medals. Sammy Wanjiru continued to sustain his gap back to Gharib. Gharib slowly reeled the deficit back but Wanjiru won the gold medal in an Olympic record 2:06:32. Gharib got silver, and Tsegaye Kebede pulled himself into third to take the bronze.

## Background

This was the 26th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. The defending champion, Stefano Baldini of Italy, was the only returning runner from the top ten finishers in the 2004 marathon. The reigning champion (from 2007) was Luke Kibet Bowen of Kenya; he had been injured during rioting in Kenya and had not yet regained top form, but did enter as an injury replacement. Jaouad Gharib of Morocco had won the 2003 and 2005 world championships; he competed in Beijing. The favorite would have been well-established 10,000 metres runner Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, who had started competing in marathons in 2005 and broken the world record at the 2007 Berlin race; Haile did not run in Beijing due to air quality concerns. The race was thus "wide open."
Eritrea, Kazakhstan, and Montenegro each made their first appearance in Olympic men's marathons. The United States made its 25th appearance, most of any nation, having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games.

## Qualification

Each National Olympic Committee (NOC) was able to enter up to three entrants providing they had met the A qualifying standard (2:15:00) in the qualifying period (1 January 2007 to 23 July 2008). NOCs were also permitted to enter one athlete providing he had met the B standard (2:18:00) in the same qualifying period. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress.

## Competition format and course

As all Olympic marathons, the competition was a single race. The marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards was run over a point-to-point route.

## Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows:
| World record | Haile Gebrselassie (ETH) | 2:04:26 | Berlin, Germany | 28 September 2007 |
| Olympic record | Carlos Lopes (POR) | 2:09:21 | Los Angeles, United States | 12 August 1984 |
Samuel Wanjiru set a new Olympic record at 2:06:32.

## Schedule

All times are China Standard Time (UTC+8)
| Date | Time | Round |
| Sunday, 24 August 2008 | 7:30 | Final |

## Results

Seventy-six runners finished; 19 did not.
| Rank | Athlete | Nation | Time | Notes |
| | Samuel Wanjiru | Kenya | 2:06:32 | OR |
| | Jaouad Gharib | Morocco | 2:07:16 | |
| | Tsegaye Kebede | Ethiopia | 2:10:00 | |
| 4 | Deriba Merga | Ethiopia | 2:10:21 | |
| 5 | Martin Lel | Kenya | 2:10:24 | |
| 6 | Viktor Röthlin | Switzerland | 2:10:35 | |
| 7 | Gashaw Asfaw | Ethiopia | 2:10:52 | |
| 8 | Yared Asmerom | Eritrea | 2:11:11 | |
| 9 | Dathan Ritzenhein | United States | 2:11:59 | |
| 10 | Ryan Hall | United States | 2:12:33 | |
| 11 | Mike Fokoroni | Zimbabwe | 2:13:17 | PB |
| 12 | Stefano Baldini | Italy | 2:13:25 | |
| 13 | Tsuyoshi Ogata | Japan | 2:13:26 | SB |
| 14 | Grigoriy Andreyev | Russia | 2:13:33 | |
| 15 | Ruggero Pertile | Italy | 2:13:39 | |
| 16 | José Manuel Martínez | Spain | 2:14:00 | |
| 17 | Francis Kirwa | Finland | 2:14:22 | |
| 18 | Lee Myong-Seung | South Korea | 2:14:37 | |
| 19 | Janne Holmén | Finland | 2:14:44 | |
| 20 | Abderrahim Goumri | Morocco | 2:15:00 | |
| 21 | Aleksey Sokolov | Russia | 2:15:57 | |
| 22 | Brian Sell | United States | 2:16:07 | |
| 23 | Ottaviano Andriani | Italy | 2:16:10 | |
| 24 | Dan Robinson | Great Britain | 2:16:14 | |
| 25 | Deng Haiyang | China | 2:16:17 | |
| 26 | Abderrahime Bouramdane | Morocco | 2:17:42 | |
| 27 | Vasyl Matviychuk | Ukraine | 2:17:50 | |
| 28 | Lee Bong-Ju | South Korea | 2:17:56 | |
| 29 | Oleg Kulkov | Russia | 2:18:11 | |
| 30 | Paulo Gomes | Portugal | 2:18:15 | |
| 31 | Alex Malinga | Uganda | 2:18:26 | |
| 32 | Carlos Cordero | Mexico | 2:18:40 | |
| 33 | Ri Kum-Song | North Korea | 2:19:08 | |
| 34 | Henryk Szost | Poland | 2:19:43 | |
| 35 | José Amado García | Guatemala | 2:20:15 | |
| 36 | Yonas Kifle | Eritrea | 2:20:23 | |
| 37 | Nasar Sakar Saeed | Bahrain | 2:20:24 | |
| 38 | José de Souza | Brazil | 2:20:25 | |
| 39 | Kamiel Maase | Netherlands | 2:20:30 | |
| 40 | Pak Song-Chol | North Korea | 2:21:16 | |
| 41 | Iaroslav Musinschi | Moldova | 2:21:18 | |
| 42 | Kim Il-Nam | North Korea | 2:21:51 | |
| 43 | Juan Carlos Cardona | Colombia | 2:21:57 | |
| 44 | Hendrick Ramaala | South Africa | 2:22:43 | |
| 45 | Arjun Kumar Basnet | Nepal | 2:23:09 | PB |
| 46 | Hélder Ornelas | Portugal | 2:23:20 | |
| 47 | Procopio Franco | Mexico | 2:23:24 | |
| 48 | Nelson Cruz | Cape Verde | 2:23:47 | |
| 49 | Roberto Echeverría | Chile | 2:23:54 | |
| 50 | Kim Yi-Yong | South Korea | 2:23:57 | |
| 51 | Li Zhuhong | China | 2:24:08 | |
| 52 | Bat-Ochiryn Ser-Od | Mongolia | 2:24:19 | |
| 53 | Norman Dlomo | South Africa | 2:24:28 | |
| 54 | Arkadiusz Sowa | Poland | 2:24:48 | |
| 55 | Samson Ramadhani | Tanzania | 2:25:03 | |
| 56 | Ndabili Bashingili | Botswana | 2:25:11 | |
| 57 | Simon Munyutu | France | 2:25:50 | |
| 58 | Antoni Bernadó | Andorra | 2:26:29 | |
| 59 | Wu Wen-Chien | Chinese Taipei | 2:26:55 | |
| 60 | Lee Troop | Australia | 2:27:17 | |
| 61 | Constantino León | Peru | 2:28:04 | |
| 62 | Goran Stojiljković | Montenegro | 2:28:14 | |
| 63 | Alfredo Arévalo | Guatemala | 2:28:26 | |
| 64 | Yousf Othman Qader | Qatar | 2:28:40 | |
| 65 | Franklin Tenorio | Ecuador | 2:29:05 | |
| 66 | Francisco Bautista | Mexico | 2:29:28 | |
| 67 | Roman Kejžar | Slovenia | 2:29:37 | |
| 68 | Joachim Nshimirimana | Burundi | 2:29:55 | |
| 69 | Seteng Ayele | Israel | 2:30:07 | |
| 70 | Takhir Mamashayev | Kazakhstan | 2:30:26 | |
| 71 | Abdil Ceylan | Turkey | 2:31:43 | |
| 72 | José Ríos | Spain | 2:32:35 | |
| 73 | Hem Bunting | Cambodia | 2:33:32 | |
| 74 | Marcel Tschopp | Liechtenstein | 2:35:06 | |
| 75 | Pavel Loskutov | Estonia | 2:39:01 | |
| 76 | Atsushi Sato | Japan | 2:41:08 | |
| — | Tesfayohannes Mesfen | Eritrea | DNF | After 35 km |
| — | Julio Rey | Spain | DNF | After 35 km |
| — | Martin Fagan | Ireland | DNF | After 30 km |
| — | Al Mustafa Riyadh | Bahrain | DNF | After 30 km |
| — | Ali Mabrouk El Zaidi | Libya | DNF | After 30 km |
| — | Marilson dos Santos | Brazil | DNF | After 30 km |
| — | Luke Kibet Bowen | Kenya | DNF | After 25 km |
| — | Abdulhak Elgorche Zakaria | Bahrain | DNF | After 25 km |
| — | Luis Fonseca | Venezuela | DNF | After 25 km |
| — | Oleksandr Sitkovskyy | Ukraine | DNF | After half |
| — | Franck de Almeida | Brazil | DNF | After half |
| — | Andrei Gordeev | Belarus | DNF | After half |
| — | João N'Tyamba | Angola | DNF | After half |
| — | Moses Moeketsi Mosuhli | Lesotho | DNF | After 20 km |
| — | Getuli Bayo | Tanzania | DNF | After 20 km |
| — | Mubarak Hassan Shami | Qatar | DNF | After 15 km |
| — | Simon Tsotang Maine | Lesotho | DNF | After 10 km |
| — | Clement Mabothile Lebopo | Lesotho | DNF | After 5 km |
| — | Olexandr Kuzin | Ukraine | DNF | After 0 km |
| — | Mohamed Ikoki Msandeki | Tanzania | DNS | |
| — | Satoshi Osaki | Japan | DNS | |
| — | Augusto Soares | East Timor | DNS | |

### Intermediates

| Distance | Athlete | Nation | Time |
| 10 km | 1. José Manuel Martínez | Spain | 29:25 |
| 10 km | 2. Deriba Merga | Ethiopia | s.t. |
| 10 km | 3. Martin Lel | Kenya | s.t. |
| 10 km | 4. Yared Asmerom | Eritrea | s.t. |
| 10 km | 5. Yonas Kifle | Eritrea | +0:01 |
| 20 km | 1. Deriba Merga | Ethiopia | 59:10 |
| 20 km | 2. Yonas Kifle | Eritrea | s.t. |
| 20 km | 3. Martin Lel | Kenya | s.t. |
| 20 km | 4. Jaouad Gharib | Morocco | s.t. |
| 20 km | 5. Samuel Kamau Wanjiru | Kenya | s.t. |
| 30 km | 1. Deriba Merga | Ethiopia | 1:29:14 |
| 30 km | 2. Samuel Kamau Wanjiru | Kenya | s.t. |
| 30 km | 3. Jaouad Gharib | Morocco | +0:04 |
| 30 km | 4. Martin Lel | Kenya | +0:09 |
| 30 km | 5. Yonas Kifle | Eritrea | +0:15 |
| 40 km | 1. Samuel Kamau Wanjiru | Kenya | 1:59:54 |
| 40 km | 2. Jaouad Gharib | Morocco | +0:18 |
| 40 km | 3. Deriba Merga | Ethiopia | +1:57 |
| 40 km | 4. Tsegay Kebede | Ethiopia | +2:43 |
| 40 km | 5. Martin Lel | Kenya | +3:04 |
s.t. - same time.