Benjamin Limo wins the men's 5000m (© Getty Images)
There's no obvious favourite in either the men's or women's division of the 24th Los Angeles Marathon on Monday 25 May.
There are five men with lifetime bests under 2:10, but another candidate worth considering has to be Kenya's Benjamin Limo, the 2005 World 5000m champion who enters the race with what appears to be a modest marathon best of 2:12:45 from the 2008 Amsterdam Marathon.
Now 34, Limo has moved onto the roads and according to manager Ricky Simms, "Ben is very serious about the marathon. As one of the top long-distance track runners, he is determined to run a world-class time on the roads. He was in good shape for Amsterdam last fall and was running well up to 20 miles but got bad blisters in the last few miles and jogged in. He would like to run well in L.A."
He will get to test his fitness against 2007 Los Angeles Marathon champion and fellow Kenyans Fred Mogaka (2:12:03 best from 2006), Laban Kipkemboi (Kenya, 2:08:38 best from 2007), who finished second in 2006 and third in the 2005 Los Angeles Marathon and 2007 runner-up Moses Kororia.
Two Ethiopians have the best recent marathon marks in the field in 24-year-old Tariku Jufar, who ran a quick 2:08:10 in Hamburg in October, 2008 and Negari Terfa, who has already clocked 2:09:01 this season in the Xiamen Marathon in China on 3 January.
The 26.2-mile race will be run on the fastest course in Los Angeles Marathon history, previously used in 2005 and 2006, where Kenya’s then-21-year-old Benson Cherono ran a race record 2:08:40 in 2006.
Among the women, the fastest time coming into the race belongs to 38-year-old Romanian Nuta Olaro, who ran 2:24:33 in Chicago way back in 2004. But two Russians are on the rise and could challenge Lidiya Grigoryeva’s race record of 2:25:10, also from 2006: Lyubov Morgunova and Tatiana Petrova.
Morgunova, also 38, won the prestigious Rotterdam Marathon last year in her lifetime best of 2:25:12 and then followed up with a strong ninth-place finish in the 2008 New York City Marathon (2:30:38).
Petrova was the silver medallist in the 3000m Steeplechase in the 2007 World Championships, then finished fourth in the Olympic Games Steeplechase final in Beijing last year. Only 26, she has dabbled in the marathon since 2004, but slashed more than five minutes off her lifetime best with a third-place finish in the Dubai Marathon in January in 2:25:53.
Pat Harris (Organisers) for the IAAF
