31-Jan-1988 – Osaka Women’s Marathon – 2:40:29 – Nike Mariah
Date of birth: 12-May-1960
Nationality: Australian
Women-Only World Record duration: 10 years, 10 months, 6 days
The athlete:
Lisa Ondieki is one of the finest Australian distance runners of all-time. She began her career competing in hurdles, where she was competent but clearly not in her element. This began to change when she moved to America in 1980 after receiving a scholarship from the University of Oregon.
Longer distances suited her better, despite her initially being reluctant to take on the fabled distance. In December of 1983 she made her marathon debut at the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville Alabama. She won, her time of 2:32:21 the new Australian National Record. Ondieki kept improving, and after competing at the Olympics would finish second at the 1984 Chicago Marathon in 2:27:40, only behind legend Rosa Mota.
1985 would have Ondieki second behind another legend at the New York City Marathon, her sub 2:30 time not enough to beat Grete Waitz. She would go on to win the marathon at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, her 2:26:07 two minutes ahead of her nearest rival Lorraine Moller.
Moller would get her revenge by winning their next matchup at the 1987 Osaka Women’s Marathon, arguably the premier women’s only marathon in the world. 1988 would see her enter the event again, and this time she would effectively run the race as her own personal time trial, winning in 2:23:51.
It stood as the course record for the event for 11 years, and was also the fastest marathon time for a women’s only marathon until Naoko Takahashi took the honours in 1998. Ondieki would go on to almost win gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, only 13 seconds behind Rosa Mota while also battling stomach problems.
She could take some consolation with a dominant performance at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, leading from start to finish, and in 1992 Ondieki would finally win the New York City Marathon. In what she described as her finest race, she set the new course record which stood until 2001.
Many more strong performances followed, with Ondieki eventually making her last international marathon appearance at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, her DNF not representative of the speed she had otherwise shown in her career.
The shoes:
For the first five years of her career, Ondieki favoured the Nike Mariah, one of the most popular and significant running shoes in the history of distance running. Introduced in 1980, it features full-length air cushioning that in testing improved running efficiency by two percent.
Although Nike released myriad Special Make Up or SMU colourways of the Mariah, Ondieki was clearly content with the standard off-white and navy. Such was the popularity of the model that Nike continued selling it new until at least 1985. Ondieki was not the only elite athlete who favoured the Mariah, one Ingrid Kristiansen setting outright women’s marathon world records in the model in both 1984 and 1985.
References:
https://www.sctathletics.com/r1998_07.html
https://www.athletics.com.au/hall-of-fame/lisa-ondieki/
https://sahof.org.au/hall-of-fame-member/lisa-ondieki-martin/
https://more.arrs.run/runner/1608
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Martin_(runner)
https://wamsteeker.com/?p=1651
https://www.shoesyourvintage.com/product/vintage-1981-nike-mariah/