Posted: February 15, 2006

Athletics: Postponed Dubai Marathon Set For Friday

From David Monti

© 2006 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

The seventh annual Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon is set to take place on Friday after being postponed from its original date of Jan. 6. The postponement was caused by a mandatory period of mourning after the death of ruler Sheikh Maktoum who has been replaced by his younger brother, Sheikh Mohamed.

The delay in holding the race will no doubt have an effect on the performances of the top athletes whose training programs were geared to provide top efforts more than a month ago. But perhaps for defending champion Dejene Guta of Ethiopia, the extra time may have helped him get over a nagging hip injury. He ran 2:10:45 last year, his personal best, and earned $25,000.

His challengers will be compatriots Belay Wolashe, Tesfaye Bogale, and Dawit Trfe, plus the Kenyan David Kirui, who ran 2:08:53 at the Paris Int'l Marathon in 2003 (7th position). Kirui is an inconsistent runner, evidenced by his 2:27:10 in New York later the same year, followed by his victory at the City of Los Angeles Marathon in the spring of 2004 in 2:13:41.

On the women's side, Ethiopian Diribe Hunde will try to defend her title and better last year's winning time of 2:39:08. She'll almost certainly need to run faster than that to beat her pint-sized compatriot, Shitaye Gemechu, who has a 2:26:15 career best time and who has won the P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon three times. Romanian Luminita Talpos, who towers over Gemechu, also hopes to win the race. More of an all-purpose road racer, Talpos nonetheless has run a very strong 2:27:32 for the marathon distance, finishing sixth at Osaka in 2003.

Organizers are hoping for relatively cool conditions in the range of 15C. The race starts at 7:00 a.m. and there is a USD 150,000 prize purse on the line with $25,000 going to the male and female winners (last year's women's winner only earned $15,000).

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