Posted: July 12, 2006

Athletics: ING Amsterdam Marathon Announces First Athletes

From David Monti

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

The organizers of the ING Amsterdam Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, October 15, have announced the first two athletes who have committed to the field. Both men, Vanderlei de Lima of Brazil and Fabiano Joseph of Tanzania, have won international athletics medals on the road.

Lima, the man who was leading the 2004 Olympic Marathon until a derranged man shoved him off the course, will headline the race. The Brazilian star, who turns 37 years-old next month, was able to recover from that unfortunate incident and grab the bronze medal behind Stefano Baldini of Italy and Meb Keflezighi of the United States. The gentle way in which he dealt with his bad fortune in Athens endeared him to sports fans around the world, making him a model of good sportsmanship.

Lima's marathon career stretches some 12 years. He set his personal best of 2:08:31 in Tokyo in 1998. His victories in commercial marathons include Reims (1994), Tokyo (1996), São Paulo (2002) and Hamburg (2004). He also won the Pan Am Games title in 2003.

Joseph, the Tanzanian who won the 2005 IAAF World Half-Marathon Championships in Edmonton when he passed Hassan Mubarak Shami of Qatar literally in the last meter of the race, will make his marathon debut at Amsterdam. In addition to his victory at Edmonton, Joseph has two silver medals at the World Half-Marathon Championships (2004 and 2003), and has a fast 1:00:52 career best time, about equivalent to a 2:07:47 marathon.

The Amsterdam Marathon is sponsored by the Dutch financial giant, ING, which sponsors a number of the world's top marathons, including the ING New York City Marathon, part of the World Marathon Majors.

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