Viktor Röthlin was the first non-African finisher for the second championship marathon in a row. © www.photorun.net

In the Olympic marathon in Beijing, Viktor Röthlin once again proved his unique status among non-African marathon runners. As was the case a year ago at the World Championships in Osaka, where he won the bronze medal, the 33-year-old Swiss was the first finisher not born in Africa, this time taking sixth in 2:10:35. Röthlin, who made up a lot of ground in the closing stages of the race, missed a bronze medal by 35 seconds.

Quite a few people in Switzerland thought him capable of winning a bronze medal. Among them were Markus Ryffel, who won silver in the 5,000m in the 1984 Olympics and was someone Röthlin admired, even as a boy. However, there is no reason to be disappointed about sixth place. A look at the statistics shows the unprecedented nature of this Olympic success for a Swiss male marathon runner; the best previous Swiss finish in the Olympic marathon goes back to 1948 when Kaspar Schiesser was 22nd in 2:52:09.

“To finish sixth here in Beijing and be the best white runner is a big success for me,” said Röthlin. “I’d been hoping that the Kenyans would be aiming for a half-marathon split of 64:30. That would have been ideal for me. But they were clearly running a lot faster—too fast for me. It was hard, running on my own, but I wanted to run into the stadium, not finish the Olympic marathon on the bus.”

“At times it was hard out there on the course running alone because I didn’t know my position in the race. But every five kilometers or so someone from our team would feed me information, and that was a help. When one of the Americans got close to me, that woke me up allright. Then it started to get easier and I also began to overtake fading runners. Of course, when that happens it boosts your motivation,” said Röthlin, who doesn’t expect to be competing in London in 2012. “This was my best chance as far as the Olympics goes—four years ago I was too young, in four years I’ll be too old. Perhaps I’ll be commentating on the marathon in London.”

Röthlin, who has only had one coach (Robert Haas) and has been self-coached since 2000, regularly trains with a Kenyan group that includes the London marathon champion Martin Lel, who was fifth in the Olympics. In summer his preparations for the Olympic marathon included training in the Seiser Alm region of the southern Tyrol. Many Kenyans, including Lel, also train there at altitude from time to time.

Even if Röthlin won’t be running in the Olympics four years from now, he could still play a big part in any number of big city marathon races. Perhaps he could beat his high-class personal best of 2:07:23, set in winning the Tokyo marathon this winter. After all, the motto on his Web site is, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”