Twotime champs
facing showdown
AP
3 May 2000 – Spokane, Washington - Two Kenyan runners, each with two previous victories, will face each other for the first time in the 12-kilometre Bloomsday road race, organisers said Tuesday.
Josphat Machuka, who holds the course record and won the race in 1995 and 1996, will be challenged Sunday by Lazarus Nyakeraka, the 1997-98 champion, race founder Don Kardong said.
"Machuka's 33:52 is the course record, but Nyakeraka has had some great victories here, and it's going to come down to who's the fittest and most determined on Sunday,'' Kardong said of the contest between 24-year-olds.
In the elite women's division, Kenyan Jane Omoro will attempt to win her third consecutive Bloomsday title. She'll have to get by Teresa Wanjiku, also of Kenya, who came within three seconds of winning last year.
Last year's men's champion, Hezron Otwori, "didn't feel he's in good enough shape and went back to Kenya to train,'' Kardong said.
Others expected to compete for a dlrs 7,000 winner's prize are Mexico's Armando Quintanilla, a second runner-up in 1995; former marathon world best Ronaldo Da Costa of Brazil; Reuben Cheruiyot, winner of this year's Nortel Networks Cherry Blossom race; and Dominic Kirui, winner of the Mobile, Alabama, Azalea Trail Run.
In the women's division, Libbie Hickman, who finished third last year, returns. Japanese marathoner Yuko Arimori is making a rare U.S. road race appearance, as are first-timers Jane Ngotho and Hellen Kimaiyo-Kipkoskei of Kenya.
In the masters division, 1998 champion Jon Sinclair returns to battle John Tuttle, last year's top U.S. master, as well as Simon Karori of Kenya and Graeme Fell of Canada. Kim Jones, winner of two Bloomsday masters' titles, leads a women's division that includes Ukrainians Elena Viazova and Tatyana Pozdnyakova.
Jean Driscoll, winner of 11 straight Bloomsday wheelchair titles, is returning to try for a dozen, Kardong said. On the men's side, Saul Mendosa of Mexico, winner of two consecutive Bloomsday races, is expected to try for a third crown.
Open winners will advance to the Professional Road Racing Organization Race of Champions in Atlanta on July 4, Kardong said.
