European Athletics – News – Britain’s Jones celebrates the silver jubilee of his marathon record

Last Wednesday saw Steve Jones celebrate 25 years as the British marathon record holder, his run of 2:07:13 at the 1985 Chicago Marathon still being good enough for seventh in the European all-time list.

In an interview with the Welshman’s local paper, the Western Mail, Jones drew comparisons with other British legends of that era, including Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram, who are also still on the British record books a quarter of a century later.

“It’s kind of humbling to be mentioned alongside guys like Coe and Cram. I suppose they ended up the best in the world in their event and I ended up the best in the world in mine. That’s the way I look at it,” reflected Jones.

“Was I a better athlete than them? Probably not, but I was certainly a better marathon runner than them,” he joked.

Jones, a hugely respected track and cross country runner who had won a bronze medal at the 1984 IAAF World Cross Country Championships,  set a world and European marathon record of 2:08:05 when winning the 1984 Chicago Marathon, only his second outing over the classic distance.

Six months later he went close to improving his best when he won the London Marathon in 2:08:16, after a fantastic duel with his fellow Briton Charlie Spedding, but the previous day had been given the news that Portugal’s Carlos Lopes, the 1984 Olympic Games marathon gold medallist, had reduced his world and European record to 2:07.12 in the Dutch city of Rotterdam.

(Lopes’ mark was eventually to last for nearly 15 years until his compatriot Antonio Pinto set the current European record of 2:06:36 at the 2000 London Marathon.)

It was with this background that the scene was set for Jones to take another tilt at the world record on his return to Chicago, only to come up one second short.

It is also worth reflecting on the fact, and it’s a mark of his achievement in a continental context, that only since the start of the 21st century have European marathon runners been running faster than he and Lopes did 15 years before.

“I’m sad that I’ve still got the British marathon record because you want to see the sport move on. Records are made to be broken and when Carlos broke my world record I felt the pressure was off me,” added Jones.

“Of course, I would be a little bit sad if someone broke my record. But, to me, it’s even sadder that no British athlete, and particularly no Welsh athlete, has gone faster than me.”

“Sometimes it feels like 50 years ago and other times it seems like it was yesterday. I feel a bit nostalgic about it now because of the 25th anniversary and the fact people are mentioning it.

Legend has it that Jones was denied the world record in Chicago when the media and officials truck, with a race clock for the leader, left the course one and a half miles before the finishing line.

However, Jones – who is now based in Boulder, Colorado, but makes frequent trips back to his native Wales – debunked that myth in the interview.

“As far as I’m concerned there is no story. All the press guys were on the truck and they had to go, otherwise they wouldn’t have gone down the home straight.

“Yes, there was a clock on the truck but it didn’t mean anything to me. I just saw it ticking. I’m from Ebbw Vale and I wasn’t there to analyse how fast I was going,” added Jones, who spent much of his running career working for the Royal Air Force as a technician before turning professional at the age of 28, when he moved from the track to the roads.

“I was a complete novice. I didn’t have my own drinks or even a watch, I just kept going.  “There was a big hoo-ha about it and the race organiser was upset. He had taken a lot of flak and was upset that I might blame him as well but it didn’t bother me because I won the race and beat the guy I wanted to beat (Australia’s then reigning world champion Rob De Castella).

“I lost out on a $50,000 bonus (for missing the world record), but it didn’t worry me. I got £35,000 to participate and I won the race. I wasn’t going to get down on my knees and cry about it.”

The following year, Jones had another full-blooded attempt at the world record at the 1986 European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart.

He went from the gun like a man possessed and at 20km was 10 seconds inside Lopes’ world record pace of the previous year. At 25km he was two minutes ahead of a four-man chasing pack that consisted of Italy’s Gelindo Bordin and Orlando Pizzolato as well as West Germany’s Herbert Steffny and Ralf Salzmann.

However, Jones was soon to run out of gas.

The Germans gradually dropped back, finishing third and fourth, but the Italians stayed together and passed Jones at 33km before Bordin won the race for the gold medal.

Jones then suffered a tortured final nine kilometres, eventually finishing in 20th place.

However, he was to bounce back and did add victories at the 1988 New York City Marathon and 1992 Toronto Marathon to his list of triumphs.

“The sport’s moved on and the world record’s got faster and faster. I never thought the record would go under 2:05, so to see it at 2:03:50 is amazing. I just hope that I don’t have to wait another 25 years to see my British record broken,” commented Jones.

European Athletics – News