Shutterstock / Pavel1964
An Italian distance runner has won the Venice Marathon for the first time in 22 years after a debacle involving the race’s most elite runner. It’s a huge win for the Italian runner, but it’s also one that might need an asterisk next to the title in the record books after you hear this story.
At the 25-kilometer mark, an official on a motorcycle who was leading the race’s elite runners took a wrong turn and veered off the race course for several hundred meters before someone realized what was happening and redirected the runners back on course. This cost the pack of lead runners from East Africa roughly two minutes. That two minute time was enough for Eyob Faniel of the Venice Marathon Club to make up the 1-minute deficit on the lead pack and win the race with a time of 2:12:16.
Chris Chavez of Extra Mustard notes that this wasn’t an entirely unprecedented win for Eyob Faniel. For starters, while he may be Italian now, Faniel is an Eritrean-born distance runner. He’s also only 1:20 off the fastest time ever for an Italian, and a very likely candidate for the Italian Olympic team next time around.
His time was also impressive. His time was also impressive in context. If he was American, it would’ve been the 3rd fastest time of 2017. So it’s not exactly like some Joe Schmo off the streets won this race, he’s still very much an elite distance runner.