Haile Gebrselassie relaxing in Vienna (© Andrew McClanahan)
Vienna, AustriaMore than 32,000 runners have already entered this Sunday’s Vienna City Marathon, which also includes a half marathon, and while Ethiopia’s superstar Haile Gebrselassie will run the shorter event at today’s press conference the focus was on the classic distance.
Much has been written about Haile Gebrselassie in recent months in the Austrian press. And so far it was almost unnoticed that the marathon actually will see its best ever field regarding the depth of the elite athletes. A dozen runners feature personal bests of sub 2:10. And six of them so far have run faster than 2:08. With such quality and a very promising weather forecast the course record of 2:07:38 is an obvious target.
On Sunday Paul Kirui, who has the fastest personal best in the field (2:06:44; 2nd Rotterdam 2006) will be after the three-year-old course record of, family namesake but no relation, Abel Kirui, the reigning World Marathon champion. Since his Rotterdam run Paul Kirui has shown a string of fine performances clocking sub 2:10 times in each year including 2:07:35 in 2010.
“But I also had a number of injury problems in recent years. That is why I never was able to break my personal best. But this time the built-up went very well,” said 31-year-old Paul Kirui, who had won the gold medal at the World Half Marathon Championships in 2004.
While Isaac Macharia (PB: 2:07:16), Nicholas Chelimo (2:07:38), Patrick Ivuti (2:07:46) and Shadrack Kiplagat (2:07:53) are the other Kenyans in with sub 2:08 personal bests there is also one European among this group: Dimitry Baranovsky returns to the Vienna City Marathon. The Ukrainian clocked his personal best of 2:07:15 when placing second in Fukuoka in 2006. Earlier in that year he had been third in Vienna with 2:10:36.
In the women’s race, two newcomers to the distance could well spring a surprise on Sunday: Kenya’s Peninah Arusei will run her debut, while Portugal’s Ana Dulce Felix intends to complete her first marathon as well. Both have recently shown encouraging form. Peninah Arusei, who had three times won the Berlin 25 k race, took the Paris half marathon a month ago with 68:30 minutes. It is interesting and could be a promising sign that in this race she beat Philes Ongori, who then went on to win her marathon debut in Rotterdam last Sunday with 2:24:20. Ana Dulce Felix hopes to develop into one of Europe’s leading women marathon runners. She recently improved her half marathon best to 68:33, when she was second in Lisbon.
While Arusei and Felix will most probably head for a sub 2:25 time there are plenty of runners with good marathon experience in the elite field as well. Five of them feature personal bests between 2:26 and 2:29: Genet Getaneh (Ethiopia/2:26:37), Elza Kireyeva (Russia/2:28:02), Diana Lobacevske (Lithuania/2:28:03), Fate Tola (Ethiopia/2:28:22) and Elisabeth Chemweno (Kenya/2:28:55).
The course record of 2:23:47 was established back in 2000 by Italy’s Maura Viceconte.
The Vienna City Marathon will be shown live on the internet on Sunday from 8:40 am (start at 8:58 am) at: www.vienna-marathon.com
Organisers for the IAAF
