Flame Jeff Hunt (NSW) was forced to withdraw from the marathon at the 30km mark with cramp, on the penultimate session of the IAAF world championships.

The 29-year-old had been hoping to finish top 14 and claim an automatic spot for next year’s Olympic Games. However, cramp in his right calf forced him to withdraw from the race. 

Kenya’s Abel Kirui successfully defended his title in 2:07:38, leading from the 25km mark. His compatriot Vincent Kipruto finished in second and Ethiopia’s Feyisa Lilesa finished third.

Hunt ran through the first 5km mark at 16:14 and he maintained a consistent pace from thereon in with his split times reading 32:28 (10km), 48:41 (15km), 1:05:08(20km), 1:21:56 (25km) and 1:39:25 (30km). And he moved steadily from 59^th at the 10km point to 45^th by the time he was forced to withdraw. 

He said: “I’m pretty disappointed. I came here with the goal of a top 14 and automatic spot at the Olympics. I felt good half way and tried to roll on and get back from there.

“I started slowing down from about 25 (km) and then as I reached 30 (km) the cramp just started coming on in my right calf and my achilles. Then about 500m before 30 (km) it really started grabbing me and I slowed right down and there was no point continuing. 

“It’s never happened like that before to me. It’s only my second ever DNF (Did Not Finish) so I have a pretty good record of not-not finishing.

“Training had been going great, I felt like I acclimatised perfectly. I had my fluidschecked, that was fine, everything felt good. It’s just one of those things on the day I got dealt a bad card.” 

Hunt’s only marathon for the year was in Beppu (JAP), in February, where he ran animpressive 2:13:14 to place eighth. It was the same race in which he made his marathon debut a year previous and set the fastest time ever by an Australian debutant.

And here he kept pace with the British pair David Webb and Lee Merrien, who finished 15^th (2:15:48) and 22^nd (2:16:59) respectively. 

Asked what he thought he was on course to do, before cramping, Hunt said: “I don’t know as I don’t know what rate they were coming back at me.

“I was hoping to pick it up at 30 (km) and try to go through as you can pick up about 20 places in the last 10k. Maybe it would’ve happened, maybe it wouldn’t. The measure will be where the British guys placed as I ran with them pretty much the whole race. 

“They were doing exactly what I was doing. They gapped me when I started having trouble and that was it, so when they started pulling away I knew something was going wrong because they’d been running pretty much the same splits as me.”

Athletics Australia – News