Aniko Kalovics wins her marathon debut in Carpi (© Lorenzo Sampaolo)
The Turin Marathon scheduled on Sunday 15 April returns to its traditional spring date after being postponed to September last year due to the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.
This year Turin is an important race in the busy road race calender in Italy which began in Rome on 18 March and will continue on 22 April with the Maratona Sant’Antonio in Padua. For some of the top Italian Marathon runners who are pursuing the goal to compete at this summer’s IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Turin will be a crucial test. The main International focus of the women’s race will be the second Marathon outing of Hungary’s Aniko Kalovics who will be aiming to improve her 2:26:44 PB set last autumn in Carpi.
Second Marathon for Kalovics
The athlete from Szombathely has recently shown very good form at the Stramilano Half Marathon race where she broke the Hungarian record with an impressive 1:08:58, which ranks her fifth in the world over the distance this year. This shows that Kalovics may go for a sub-2:26 time over the new Turin course from Via Po to Piazza Castello.
This year Kalovics took part in many training races in Cross Country and on the road with the goal to peak her form for this weekend’s Turin contest. She won the traditional end-of-the year Boclassic road race in Bolzano in impressive style. Then she collected three third place finishes in three important cross country races in Hannut, Fuensalida and San Vittore Olona.
Kenyan Caroline Kwambai (second in Amsterdam in her PB 2:28:47) and last year’s Treviso Marathon winner, and European Championships seventh placer Debora Toniolo (PB 2:28:31) will try to dip under their lifetime bests in the wake of Kalovics. The Hungarian star is expected to set a furious pace from the beginning with her usual front-running tactic. Half Marathon specialist Hafida Izem from Morocco and former 3000m Steeplechase world record holder Justina Bak complete the line-up.
Caimmi’s comeback continues – men’s race
The men’s race will mark the return of Italian top runner Daniele Caimmi, a former World championships sixth placer in Paris 2003. Afterwards Caimmi laboured through two troubled years due to physical problems following a pair of very difficult Marathons in Boston and in the Athens Olympics in 2004.
Caimmi, who was born in Jesi on 17 December 1972, started his 2006 comeback season with a promising runner-up placing in 2:09:30 in Rome but later last year he was forced to pull out of the European Championships in Gothenburg due to an injury. He returned last autumn in the Venice Marathon but he suffered from cramps in the mid of the race but decided not to pull out and finished a distant sixth.
The Italian, who set his lifetime best of 2:08:59 in Milan in 2002, began his 2007 campaign promisingly with an encouraging result in the Italian Cross Country Championships in Modena where he finished third in the long course race. His confidence has recently been boosted by the joyous news that his wife Rosaria Console (also a top Italian Marathon runner) will give birth to their first child this year.
Another leading Italian runner who is looking to return to the top is Danilo Goffi who won the Turin Marathon in 2005 in 2:11:12. on a cold and rainy day. Goffi, a former European silver medallist in Budapest 1998, set his career best in the same year when he ran 2:08:33 in Rotterdam. The last time he dipped under 2:10 was in 2004 when he finished second in Venice. Last year the runner from Nerviano, near Milan, finished 11th at the European Championships in Gothenburg, a placing which contributed to the Italian triumph in the European Cup.
The Kenyan challenge is led by Enock Mitei (2:10:52), Alfonsi Yatich (2:10:58) and Yusuf Songoka (2:11:14). Some of them have already run a Marathon this year. Twenty-three-year old Yatich, brother of 2005 World Half Marathon champion Mubarak Hassan Shami, set his 2:10:58 PB in Dubai on 12 January. Justus Kiprono, Fred Kosgei and Philemon Tarbei will be making their debuts over the distance.
Another name to watch is Morocco’s Abdelkebir Lamachi who competes for an Italian club and set the best time of his career with 2:11:08 in Treviso in 2006.
Diego Sampaolo for the IAAF
