Posted: February 26, 2005

Athletics: Kwambai Aims To Break One Hour In Rome-Ostia Half Marathon

From David Monti

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

By Alberto Zorzi

ROME (25-Feb) -- Kenya's James Kwambai has just one aim for Sunday's Rome-Ostia Half-Marathon: to became the 9th man ever to break the one-hour on the 21.097 km distance.

The Kenyan, trained by Italian coach Gabriele Rosa, is in a very good shape, as he recently demonstrated, winning the tough San Blas Half-Marathon on February 6 in Puerto Rico with a time of 1:03:45.

Kwambai has won last two editions of the Udine Half-Marathon. In 2004 he won with a time of 1:00:22, the second best of the year, and also ran a stunning 1:01:43 in Eldoret at 2000m of altitude. The year before he clocked 1:00:38 in Udine and 1:01:56 in Berlin, the race in which he became known. NOTE: The distance of the race at Udine is widely accepted to be short; the course does not have an AIMS course certificate --Ed.

"James arrived in Italy Wednesday -- Roberta Colombi from "Rosa & Associati" told RRW -- and he just had to adapt to the cold. He had had a very good training in Kenya under Dr. Rosa and Mr. Claudio Berardelli. He is very focused on this race."

"According to race's plan -- Mrs. Colombi continued -- Benjamin Pseret, who will run the Paris Half Marathon next week, should cross 10 km in 28:40." This means a 1:00:30 pace, but the second half is quite faster (last year will-be World champion Paul Kirui clocked 28:57 at 10km and then closed with 1:00:22). Pseret has a 1:01:52 PB on the half marathon.

Also William Todoo and Philip Biwott, who will be the main rivals for Kwambai, are trained by Rosa. Todoo set his PB on the distance in the 2004 Eldoret Discovery Kenya, closing with 1:01:45, two seconds behind Kwambai. Biwott ran well at this year's Discovery Kenya with 1:03:05.

The women's race suffered a last minute withdrawal by defending champion Hafida Izem (illness) and the best Italian marathon runner Bruna Genovese (injury). The favourite will be other Italian Rosalba Console, who in 2003 ran a wonderful race (2nd with 1:09:56 PB) and last year closed 3rd (1:12:05).