Posted: May 14, 2004

Athletics: Lidia Simon Returns To Competition In Vienna

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

Sunday's Vienna City Marathon will feature the competitive return to the marathon of 2000 Olympic silver medalist, Lidia Simon of Romania.

Simon, who also won the world championships title in the marathon in Edmonton in 2001, has not managed a quality marathon performance since taking maternity leave in 2002. Her last 42.195 km race was at Chicago in October, 2003. She ran a mediocre 2:40:54 off of a 1:14:30 first half. She says she is ready to return to a high level again.

"In general I feel physically stronger after giving birth," she told reporters in Vienna yesterday at a press conference. "And I hope to run faster times in future. As for Sunday I will look for a first half of about 73 minutes. That should be relatively easy for me, so I hope to cover the second half a bit faster."

Should Simon break the IAAF Olympic Games "A" qualifying standard of 2:37:00 --a modest goal-- she will gain selection to the Romanian Olympic team.

Now 30 years-old, Simon is one of the great marathoners of all-time, especially in championship races. She has a career best time of 2:22:54, achieved in Osaka in 2000 in an all-women's race. In addition to her silver medal from Sydney and her gold medal from Edmonton, Simon won the bronze medal at the world championships twice in 1997 and 1999. She has also won at Osaka three consecutive times (1998 through 2000).

The course record at Vienna is a solid 2:23:47 by Maura Viceconte of Italy, set in 2000. Two other Romanian women, Florina Pana (1999) and Aurica Buia (1996) have won at Vienna in the 20-year history of the race.

Kenyans are expected to dominate the men's race, with 38 year-old Moses Tanui to take on countrymen Raymond Kipkoech, Samson Kandie, Matthew Sigei and Patrick Chumba. Tanui won at Vienna in 2002 in 2:10:25.

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