GOLD MEDALLISTS WANJIRU & TADESE TO FACE OFF IN CASTELBUONO
By David Monti
July 16, 2010
(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 Hal had committed to the
race, but was forced to withdraw for personal reasons, according to his
manager, Ray Flynn (LetsRun.com editor's addition: Press reports indicate that Hall is goign to run the Bix 7-Miler in Iowa on Saturday).
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
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