The Singapore Marathon: Reflecting Our Best Attributes

David Ng wonders, can a running event really channel the spirit of a Nation?

- David Ng

As a sporting pursuit, running is foremost an individual effort that helps explore one’s limits. Perhaps the benchmark individual event is the marathon, echoing the spirt of Pheidippides running from Marathon to Athens in 490 B.C. with military purpose, serving as an analogy for life’s challenges and defining the Olympic spirit.

That spirit is embodied in every marathon championship, channelling individual backstories into a proxy for individual and national pride.

The marathon is revered for unique reasons compared to other running events. The ‘blue riband’ 100m bestows the ‘fastest wo[man] in the world’ crown, where pure power combines with reflex and technique; the 400m hurdles adds further dimensions of dexterity and timing combined with grace and sustained raw power. Mid-distance mavens are lithe strategists that hone their craft on reading the tactics of competitors, technical efficiency and pain tolerance that usually humbles all but the victor in the last 200m.