Catherine Ndereba wins the women's marathon (© Getty Images)
The world’s newly crowned fastest ever marathon runner Paul Tergat and women's World Marathon champion Catherine Ndereba, have both confirmed their participation in the 2003 TOTAL Great Ethiopian Run which will be held on Sunday 30 November 2003.
The 34-year old Tergat, who became the first man to run under 2:05 when he won the Real Berlin Marathon ten days ago, is expected to come up against former four-time World 10,000m champion Haile Gebrselassie, although the Ethiopian maestro, now the race director of the Great Ethiopian Run, is yet confirm his participation for this year's event. Whatever, Tergat will have more than the high altitude of Addis Ababa to contend with if his great advisory doesn’t run, as Ethiopia's latest breed of upcoming runners will do battle for the third year running.
The five-time World Cross Country champion will also be joined in the men's race by 31-year old Kenyan Martin Keino, who won a low key 2000m (5:08.68) in the IAAF Golden League meeting in Zurich this year. Together, they will join two other runners in the Kenyan team to face four Ethiopians (names yet to be confirmed) in the Toyota Team Challenge, an elite team event bringing together Athletes from the two countries. With World Cross Country Bronze medallist Gebregziabher Gebremariam expected to defend the title he won last year, the race itself is already promising to be yet another East African affair.
In the women's race, the recently-crowned World Marathon champion Catherine Ndereba will run in Addis Ababa for the first time three months after tearing apart a world-class field to win World Championship gold in Paris. She will be joined by former Half-Marathon world record holder Susan Chepkemei in the women's version of the Toyota Team challenge with the names of the Ethiopian runners also yet to be confirmed.
Britain’s former World Cup Marathon winner and current event organizer of the Great Ethiopian Run Richard Nerurkar commented - "Obviously, Tergat is an athlete very well known to the Ethiopian public when he ran against Haile [Gebrselassie] at the Olympics. We wanted to bring in names which the Ethiopian public would know very well and I think Tergat's inclusion is another justification that the TOTAL Great Ethiopian Run continues to attract the very best."
The Great Ethiopian Run became the largest road race in Africa when an approximated 16,000 took part in last year's event, but according to Nerurkar, the numbers will increase again this year. "We expect 18,000 runners this year," he said. "The event has gained a lot of popularity in the last two years and we hope that continues again this year."
