The start of the 2006 Beijing Marathon (© Getty Images)
The 2007 ANA Beijing International Marathon comes to the streets of next year's Olympic host city this Sunday 21 October. With three of the world's major marathons (Berlin, Chicago and New York) also being contested in the fall, and the Osaka World Championships having been run just seven weeks ago for the women and eight for the men, the fields are understandably devoid of much of the top talent in the world.
This year's edition of China's premier marathon sports a collection of up-and-coming talent and veteran performers from Asia and Africa, with Japan, North Korea, and Kenya sporting the largest number of elite entrants in both the men's and women's divisions.
In past years the event has started in Tiananmen Square, but the 2007 version of the race will begin and end at the National Olympic Sports Center, located just south of the Olympic Green, the area between Beijing's northern Fourth and Fifth Ring Roads that will house many of the venues for next year's Summer Olympics. The race route will pass to the west of the Olympic Green, in view of the famed National Stadium and Water Cube.
The course records are 2:07:35 set by Kodana Taisuke in 1986 and Abebe Mekonnen in 1988 for the men, and 2:19:38 by China's Sun Yingjie in 2003 for the women. Sun was suspended for a doping violation at the 2005 Chinese National Games. Coincidentally, her two-year suspension ends today (19 October 2007).
The Beijing International Marathon will award cash prizes for the top ten finishers in each division, with a total of US$44,250 available for the men (US$20,000 for first place) and US$32,200 for the women (US$15,000 for first place). Performance incentives include a course record bonus of US$42,195 for the men and US$30,000 for the women, and incentives for performances under several time limits.
The elite men's race includes six athletes with sub-2:10 marathon credentials. Leading the pack is Kenyan Kiprotich Kenei, who ran 2:07:42 to win the 2007 Hamburg Marathon in April, the ninth-best marathon performance of the year to date. Countryman David Kipkorir Mandago's 2:08:38 personal best came in the 2006 Rome Marathon.
Among the top competitors from Asia are Japanese entrants Nishida Takayuki and Watanabe Shinichi. Tanzanian Zebedayo Bayo, whose personal best came nine years ago in the New York City Marathon (2:08:51) and Wolde Ambesse Tolossa of Ethiopia, winner of three marathons in 2006 (San Diego, Tokyo and Honolulu), round out the top six competitors on the basis of past marathon performances.
A total of thirteen Kenyans, two Ethiopians, three athletes from Tanzania, two from North Korea, and eleven from Japan are entered in the men's elite race.
At press time, the women's elite race consisted of six entrants, including Marina Gurbina of Kazakhstan, Norah Cheptoo from Kenya, and Jong Yong Ok, Jo Pun Hui, Kim Kum Ok, and An Un Suk from North Korea. The race has traditionally been contested by a strong contingent of Chinese women so expectations were that there would be several Chinese entrants, but no elite Chinese women's competitors' names had been released by the organizers at press time.
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Mary Nicole Nazzaro for the IAAF
