Edmonton Marathon an open race

Edmonton men's marathon an open race
K. Ken Nakamura for the IAAF

Since the World Championships in Athletics was inaugurated in Helsinki in 1983, six men and seven women marathon runners were crowned as the World Champion.  During the same period, five men and five women marathon runners were crowned as the Olympic Champion. Only one marathon runner - Rosa Mota - has won both of these coveted titles.  The 2000 Olympic Champion Gezehenge Abera will have a chance to duplicate Mota’s feat in Edmonton.

With Abel Anton, the two-time defending world champion, not competing the race should be billed as a showdown between Gezehenge Abera, the reigning Olympic Champion, and Khalid Khannouchi, the world fastest marathon runner who missed the Olympics.  However, Abera is not running well since his Olympic victory, and Khannouchi’s current condition is suspect after he dropped out of the Utica Boilermaker race with back spasm.  He is reported to have missed eight days of training.

The Olympic Champion Abera was fifth in the 2000 Fukuoka marathon and 16th in the 2001 Boston marathon.  It is quite a disappointing buildup toward the World Championships compared to last year, when he won the 1999 Fukuoka marathon and finished close second in the 2000 Boston marathon.  So Khannouchi if he is healthy should be a favorite, not only because he owns the fastest time in history, but also because of his competitive records.  He never finished worse than third in the marathon, and never ran the marathon slower than 2:08:36.

Consequently, as in the last several global championships, there is no clear cut favorite and the race is wide open.  If you examine the combined 2000/2001 performance list, there is not a single runner in the list who won twice with a fast time in the last two years.

If the defending World Champion is missing and neither the reigning Olympic Champion, nor the world record holder is in top form, then who would be the favourite in Edmonton?  Because Josephat Kiprono, Abdelkader El Mouaziz and Antonio Peña have run sub 2:08 marathon in both 2000 and 2001, they may be co-favourites in Edmonton.  El Mouaziz in particular stands out because he won the last two marathons he started, the 2000 New York City marathon and 2001 London marathon, the later one with quite a fast time of 2:07:11.  However, Kiprono and Peña come close, finishing second and first in their last two marathons.  Although Kiprono finished second to Khannouchi in the 2000 Chicago marathon, he has run sub 2:07 marathon twice, including 2:06:50 at the 2001 Rotterdam marathon.

Of course, because the marathon is such an unpredictable event, one should not count out any of the top runners, for example, Julio Rey, and Francisco Javier Cortes of Spain, Giacomo Leone of Italy, Simon Biwott of Kenya, and Lee Bong-ju of Korea, all of whom either ran sub 2:08 marathon or won a major marathon this year.

Despite dominating the big city marathons in the last decade, Kenyans had trouble winning medals in the Olympics or World Championships.  In fact, the only marathon medals won by Kenyan in the last decade, a bronze in Atlanta Olympics, and a silver in Sydney Olympics were won by Eric Wainaina who is based in Japan, and does not run big city marathons.  Part of reason, of course, is because some of the best Kenyans missed Olympics and World Championships for various reasons.  However, as seen in the combined 2000/2001 marathon performance list below, the best Kenyan, Kiprono will be running in Edmonton.

The global championships are often won by up and coming marathon runners: Frank Shorter in the 1972 Olympics, Hwang Young Jo in the 1992 Olympics, Douglas Wakihurii in the 1987 World Championships to name a few examples.  In Edmonton, the runners who fits this description best may be Atsushi Fujita who set an Asian record in the 2000 Fukuoka marathon, and Shigeru Aburaya who ran 2:07:52 in his second marathon.  However, Fujita by his own admission is not 100%; he is having problem with his right leg.  On the other hand, Aburaya is fit.  “My training went better than before the Lake Biwa marathon (where he ran 2:07:52).  I can handle either fast or slow pace, because I trained for it,” told Aburaya to Tatsuo Terada.

Because there is no pace maker in the championships race, the race tends to start slow.  However, in Edmonton, it is hoped that Ken-ichi Takahashi will push the pace.  Takahashi is known to start out the race in near suicidal pace.  In the 1999 Tokyo marathon, Takahashi passed 10Km in 29:14, and 20Km in 58:30 before dropping out at 33Km.  In the 2001 Tokyo marathon, Takahashi ran little more reasonable pace, but he still passed the half way in 1:03:01.  Unfortunately, like his Fujitsu track team teammate Fujita, Takahashi is far from 100%, and not expected to push the pace. 

Combined 2000/2001 Performance List 

Note:  The combined 2000/2001 performance list is more indicative of the current situation, for some of the top runner may not have run the marathon in 2001.