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Mexico's Silva does his job
Posted: Sunday November 07, 1999 05:02 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- As the leaders in the New York City Marathon ran along Manhattan's fashionable First Avenue in the 18th mile of the race Sunday, one of them suddenly broke from the pack and sprinted into the lead. First, he led by a few yards. Then, he widened the gap. Two-time winner German Silva of Mexico had run near the front all day and now he was making his move -- directly to the back of a camera truck that was leading the runners. He hopped onto the truck and rode the rest of the race in style. Silva was reduced to rabbit status by an injury but he still ran the Marathon through the five boroughs of New York, setting the pace for the real contenders, forcing them to stay with him. "During the race, I tried to do my job, set a pace," Silva said. "By the way, I was feeling very good." So Silva simply kept right on running. Over bridges, through neighborhoods, cheered by the crowds who recognized him. And for that magic moment on First Avenue, it was 1994 and 1995 all over again. There was the temptation to stay in the race, run the rest of the way. But Silva did the sensible thing. "I didn't have my complete strength," he said. "I listened that I didn't have to finish, but I wanted to watch the race." So Silva hopped on the back of the truck and had a birdseye seat for the showdown developing between Joseph Chebet and Domingos Castro. Silva wrote his own personal chapter in this race four years ago when he made a wrong turn heading into Central Park and had to stage a rapid recovery to win the closest New York Marathon in history, two seconds ahead of countryman Benjamin Paredes. A year later, Silva was back again and running in an 18-degree wind chill, he widened his New York victory, winning by a full five seconds over Britain's Paul Evans. He passed on New York in 1996, but finished fifth in 1997 and fourth last year, both times running the race faster than he did in the years in which he won it. Over the last three years, though, Silva was troubled by a wart on the bottom of his foot. He finally decided on surgery in March and was idle for six months before resuming training in September. He felt there was not enough time to prepare for a full New York City Marathon so he volunteered to run as a pacesetter, which would allow an early exit. The exit turned out to be later rather than earlier and when the rabbit ran out of energy, he simply hitched his way home. Why the truck? "The only other way would be to run to my hotel," Silva explained. "In the meantime, I practiced my steeplechase."
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