Wöstmann has not given up on Olympic dream
Caroline Wöstmann's gamble to participate in the New York marathon with a slight injury finally caught her in the second part of the race.
Caroline Wöstmann will definitely run another international marathon next year, but her main goal will be to defend her Comrades title.
Lindsey Parry, Wöstmann’s coach, said the Tuks/hpc runner was disappointed with the way her race played out at the New York Marathon, but the positive from it was she was now more motivated than ever.
“You can say Caroline has unfinished business with the marathon,” said Parry.
Wöstmann finished 18th in 2:44:26, which meant she failed to qualify for next year’s Olympic marathon in Rio.
She was on track to run a sub 2:42:00 race up to the last 3km. If she had managed to achieve that, she would have qualified for the Olympics.
According to Parry, it was a case of just one race too many for Wöstmann.
“Caroline actually took a chance by running the New York Marathon. She had a foot-injury, but it did not seem serious enough that I thought she should withdraw,” he explained.
In spite of being injured Wöstmann still managed to run the first 21km in 1:18:40, which was a personal best for her, but over the last few kilometres she was in great pain.
There is a chance she might run a marathon as early as March next year. If she should qualify for the Olympics, the athlete’s dilemma would be recovery time.
By 31 May, the cut-off for Olympic qualification, she should have made the qualification time, which will put a lot of kilometres on her legs with the Olympics opening on 5 August.
“By that time, Caroline will already have run the Comrades. It will be a big ask to expect her to be competitive in the Olympic Marathon just more than two months later,” said Parry.
“Luckily she is still young, so I think our aim should be to rather try to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.”
Parry is confident that Wöstmann has the ability to run a sub 2:40:00 marathon. He even predicts that, on a good day, she might be able to go faster than 2:30:00.
“Her time of 3:41:00 at this year’s Two Oceans [an ultra-marathon] shows Caroline is capable of running a 2:30:00 marathon. As does her Comrades performance where her time, when broken down to minutes per kilometre, was the fastest up-time in history if the Comrades. Both Elena Nurgalieva and Frith van der Merwe (winners of the up Comrades) have posted sub 2:30:00 marathons so there is no reason why Caroline cannot also do it,” Parry said.
He said Wöstmann was taking a break now.
“When she is back, we will discuss whether running a marathon or the Two Oceans will suit her Comrades ambitions best. I do not want her to be competitive in three major races again next year. We are both keen on her running a fast time in the marathon,” he said.
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