GOLD MEDALLISTS WANJIRU & TADESE TO FACE OFF IN CASTELBUONO
By David Monti
(c) 2010 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - used with permission
PALERMO
(21-Jul) -- Two of distance running's finest champions, Samuel Wanjiru
of Kenya and Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea, will face off at the Giro
Podistico Internazionale de Castelbuono next Monday, organizers
announced at a press conference here today. The event, Europe's oldest
competitive road race, will be held for the 85th time despite the
financial crisis here which organizers said made staging this year's
contest a strain on the local government.
Wanjiru, who won the
gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Marathon in Beijing, will be making his
first competitive appearance since failing to finish the Virgin London
Marathon on 25 April. There, the 23 year-old athlete was bothered by
an injury to his right knee which forced him to drop out between 25 and
30 km. Wanjiru was the defending London champion, clocking a course
record 2:05:10 in 2009.
Tadese, 28, has won the gold medal at
the IAAF World Road Running/Half-Marathon Championships for four
consecutive years. He got his first victory over 20 km in Debrecen in
2006, duplicating the same result over the half-marathon distance in
Undine in 2007, Rio di Janeiro in 2008 and Birmingham, England, in
2009. Further proving that he is truly the master of the half-marathon
distance, Tadese ran a spectacular 58:23 IAAF-ratified world record at
the Meia-Maratona Internacional de Lisboa last 21 March, also setting
an IAAF world record at 20 km en route (55:21).
For both
athletes this will be their first appearances at the race in
Castelbuono, and they should find it challenging. The race is held on
a 1130-meter loop, with one hill, which the athletes will complete ten
times. The course record is 33:46 by Kenyan Martin Lel in 2004.
Behind
these two superstars, race director Mari Fesi has recruited four other
Africans who could also win the race. The first is defending champion
Vincent Kipruto of Kenya who won last year's contest by just one second
in 34:02 over Qatari Mubarak Hassan Shami, the 2007 IAAF World
Championships Marathon silver medallist. Kipruto, 22, was the 2009
Paris Marathon champion and has a marathon personal best of 2:05:13.
Also
in the race is four-time Boston Marathon champion Robert Kipkoech
Cheruiyot, who also won in Castelbuono in 2006 and was third in 2004.
Cheruiyot, 31, will be joined by his training partner James Kwambai,
27, who has been at the same high altitude training camp since early
July in northern Italy organized by his Italian coaches Gabriele Rosa
and Claudio Beardelli. Kwambai, who has never raced in Castelbuono,
has a sizzling marathon personal best of 2:04:27 set in Rotterdam in
2009. At that race this year, he faltered badly, was forced to walk,
and jogged in to finish 20th in 2:24:07
Abreham Feleke Cherkos,
20, of Ethiopia, the 2008 world junior 5000m champion, is also entered
and should contend for the podium.
American half-marathon record
holder Ryan Hall had committed to the race, but was forced to withdraw
for personal reasons, according to his manager, Ray Flynn.
With
competition at the European Championships in Athletics beginning next
Tuesday, recruiting top Italian talent was nearly impossible for Fesi.
Nonetheless, four Italian men earned invitations to the race, led by
the 2007 European Indoor Championships 3000m gold medallist, Cosimo
Caliandro. The versatile Caliandro, 28, has a 5000m personal best of
13:50.97 and has covered 10,000m in 28:40.94. Also on "Squadra Italia"
will be Gabriele De Nard, Gian Marco Buttazzo, and Giovanni Ruggiero.
The
unrelenting sun here will no doubt play a role in next Monday's race.
Temperatures will be around 30°C (86°F) when the race begins at 19h00
(7:00 p.m.).
ENDS