We'll wait and see. I suspect Adola withdrew from Frankfurt as he was handed a big appearance fee from Abu Dhabi. The time span between the announcement of the Abu Dhabi marathon and his withdrawal was rather short.
Also, i'm sure many guys will come to Abu Dhabi even though they already ran a fall marathon given the huge prize money, $100,000 1st place and a $100,000 bonus for an UAE all-comers record(2:04:00-Geremew-Dubai).
With $200,000 on the line + big appearance fees i think the elite field will have a depth similar to what we saw in Copenhagen Half. I expect around 30 elites with sub 2:10 bests and at least 7-10 with under 2:06.
I wonder what they would pay for a new record, maybe a $1,000,000 bonus.
Their primary sponsor the ADOC ( Abu Dhabi National Oil Company ) has a revenue of 68 billion dollars per year lol.