By David Rogers (remotely). PRAGUE, The Czech Republic. — An Ethiopian distance runner, Lemi Berhanu Hayle won the Orlen Prague Marathon for the second straight year, overcoming an early challenge by Felix Kipkoech of Kenya, but the talk of the town might well have been the long, flowing locks of Andrew Colley. A member of the Blowing Rock-based ZAP Endurance team of elite professional distance runners, Colley was No. 5 (out of 4,677 male athletes and close to 6,000 total) to cross the finish line — and the top American in the race.
Hayle pulled away from Kipkoech near the 18-mile mark to finish unchallenged the rest of the 26.2 mile distance, breaking the tape in 2:05:14. The Kenyan was a full two minutes later, in 2:07:19, followed by Tetsuya Yoroizaka of Japan at No. 3 (2:09:10), Ethiopia’s Andualem Belay Shiferaw at No. 4 (2:09:35), then Colley at No. 5, just 11 seconds later at 2:09:46.
Following Colley was a potpourri of top athletes from Eritrea, Spain, Ethiopia, Kenya, The Czech Republic, Morocco, Luxemburg, France, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Poland, Australia, Kazakhstan, Slovakia and Georgia before the next USA athlete at No. 121, Isaac Mirti (2:49:18).
The marathon course on the streets of Prague, the capital and the largest city of The Czech Republic, ran up and down the sides of the Vltava River, as well as across picturesque bridges over the city’s main waterway. The event was first staged in 1994 and, according to the RunCzech website, came about as two friends were talking over a pint of beer:
“Like so many things in the Czech Republic, the idea of staging an international marathon in Prague came over a pint of beer (pivo). It was a fine autumn Saturday in November 1994, and Carlo Capalbo was sitting in a small bar with his friends and fellow Italians Francesco Alzati, Maria Vittoria Mastrostefano and Gelindo Bordin, winner of the marathon at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. They decide to ask the famous Emil Zátopek who won three gold medals holder from the Summer Olympics in Helsinki in 1952, for his support and advice.”
The Czech Republic, as Czechoslovakia, was one of the former Soviet republics and part of the USSR. On Aug. 20, 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia to suppress the Prague Spring, a period of liberalization under First Secretary Alexander Dubček. The invasion, known as “Operation Danube,” involved hundreds of thousands of troops and was aimed at halting reform efforts and restoring hard-line communist rule.
Fast forward a mere quarter century, to 1994, and the fall of the Soviet Union resulting in many former Soviet bloc countries’ gaining self-rule brought about creative thoughts of how to make life better for the residents and businesses. Having 10,000 runners traversing the streets of Prague must engender poignant memories among the longtime residents who witnessed lines of Soviet tanks rumbling into the heart of Prague, destroying everything in their path.
