Before Sunday's Berlin marathon, Patrick Makau talked openly about his desire to take the world record back to Kenya. In the event, he delivered spectacularly, not only breaking Haile Gebrselassie's mark by 21 seconds, but also breaking Gebrselassie himself with an exhilarating burst away from the leading group around the 15-mile mark.
"In the morning my body was not good but after I started the race, it started reacting very well. I started thinking about the record," Makau said, and from the earliest split times it was clear that something special was in the offing on the same wide, flat, famously fast course on which Ethiopia's Gebrselassie set the previous record three years ago.
Makau and Gebrselassie were in a leading group of four up to just past halfway, at which point Makau accelerated like a 1,500m runner hitting the home straight, leaving the world-record holder bent double, holding his stomach on the Mitte pavement. Gebrselassie rejoined the race but eventually dropped out at 27km.
Makau kept up a two-and-half-minute lead over the field and entered the final stretch beneath the Brandenburg Gate at a grimacing canter, taking the tape in 2hr 3min 38sec, an achievement that will be leavened further by the hefty purse for setting the new record mark.
There was also a significant British moment of triumph as Scott Overall of Blackheath & Bromley produced a famous first marathon run to finish fifth in 2:10.56. Overall cruised in just behind the Kenyan Felix Limo to the surprise of pretty much everybody present, including himself.
"I couldn't believe it," he said afterwards. "When I got to 40k I thought I had got the time wrong, so I was cruising on the home straight, and when I saw the clock said 2:10, I was very surprised. I was on my own from halfway and think that if I had had a pacer, possibly may have gone quicker. All in all, not a bad debut."
It was an extraordinary performance by the 28-year-old, by trade a 5,000m runner who only began thinking about competing in marathons during May after "losing my ability to run on a track". Overall, who is from Hammersmith and works part-time in a sports shop in Clapham, south London, said it would be "a great honour" to be selected for the London Games, having finished comfortably inside the A-qualifying mark.
If Overall is selected – which he surely will be – London 2012 is likely to be only the second marathon of his career. He will at least be in familiar company in Team GB. Overall was an usher at the wedding of Mo Farah, a close friend from their days with Hounslow Athletics Club.