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| | Sunday, 14 April, 2002, 06:20 GMT 07:20 UK London's elite attraction Gebrselassie: Aiming for a record-breaking marathon debut Live coverage of the 2002 Flora London Marathon features on BBC TV from 0830 BST and on Radio Five Live and BBC Sport Online. The field for Sunday's London Marathon is thought to be the best in the history of any big-city 26.2-mile race. The men's line-up is headed by Haile Gebrselassie, making his competitive debut at the 42.2km distance. The 28-year-old Ethiopian is regarded as history's greatest track runner with 15 world records, and two Olympic gold and four-world championships at 10,000m to his credit. He also holds the world records in the 5,000 and 10,000m. Gebrselassie has vowed to go after the world record held by Moroccan-born American Khalid Khannouchi [2hrs, 5mins, 42 secs). Khannouchi, 30, is in the field, as are another dozen of the best marathon runners in the world. Tough race Gerbrselassie intends to run the first half of the race in 1:02:30, which would put him on course to smash the world mark. His opponents want to believe he will be unable to sustain the pace. Paul Tergat, the 32-year-old Kenyan who made his marathon debut a year ago in London and finished second, has been Gebrselassie's biggest track rival for years.
If Gebrselassie sets a new world mark in London, he will be the first to do it in this race since Morio Shigematsu in 2:12:00 in 1965. In addition to Khannouchi and Tergat, there is a long line of runners waiting to give the Ethiopian a tough race. They include last year's London champion Abdelkader El Mouaziz of Morocco (2:07:11 personal best), who is listed by bookmakers as co-favourite with Gebrselassie at 2-1. Khannouchi is 6-1 followed by Tergat at 7-1. Tesjaye Jifar, the New York marathon champion (2:06:49), is 10-1, while three-time London winner Antonio Pinto of Portugal (2:06:36) is 14-1. Blood tests Sunday's race with cool, still weather predicted also offers a world-class women's field among the 32,000 participants. Home favourite Paul Radcliffe, the two-time defending world half-marathon and cross-country champion, is making her marathon debut. She is listed as third favourite behind defending champion Derartu Tulu (2:23:57 best) of Ethiopia and Svetlana Zakharova (2:24:04) of Russia. Also in the mix will be KenyansJoyce Chepchumba (2:23:22) and Susan Chepkemei (2:25:12), Japan's Reiko Tosa (2:24:36), and Russian Lyudmila Petrova (2:25:45). London has become the first major marathon to blood test all elite runners. Race director Dave Bedford said he had received complete support from "all athletes and agents with no refusals". Bedford said if there were a positive 'A' sample, the runner in question would be allowed to compete and only be disqualified if the subsequent 'B' sample were also positive. All prize and appearance money would be forfeited in a disqualification. | |
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