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From David Monti
© 2007 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com
By Bob Ramsak
UDINE, Italy – When the gun sounds the start of Sunday morning’s men’s race at the 2nd IAAF World Road Running Championships, it will also set off one of the finest road battles of the fall. But the chief protagonists, defending champion Zersenay Tadesse and world half marathon record holder Samuel Wanjiru, don’t necessarily view it as a two-horse race.
"I'm not predicting anything,” said Tadesse, whose victory over 20 kilometers in Debrecen, Hungary, last year was the first world title of any kind for Eritrea. “I'm feeling good, but there many strong athletes here.”
Wanjiru, who lowered the half marathon standard to 58:33 at The Hague last March, echoed Tadesse’s sentiments. "Tomorrow I think will be very hard and tough. There's a half dozen who can make the race interesting. The Kenyan team is really tough.”
Indeed, Kenya has brought a formidable squad to Udine to defend the team title they won handily last year. Robert Kipchumba, the runner-up last year, returns, joined by Evans Cheruiyot, this year’s winner at Rotterdam (59:12), along with Patrick Makau who has produced three sub-60 minute performances this year, topped by a 58:56 victory in Berlin in April.
But the focus is clearly on the pair who have produced notable competitive records over the past 12 months.
Following his victory in Debrecen, Tadesse went on to capture the world cross country title last March as well, one of the most memorable performances of 2007. Most recently, the 25-year-old took a convincing victory at the Dam tot Dam loop 10 miler in Amsterdam three weeks ago, winning decisively despite an "accident" with police motorcycles at the 5Km point. In late August he was a distant fourth in the 10,000m in Osaka a month after taking the African Games title over the distance in Algiers, clocking a solo 27:00.30 season’s best. He has solid half marathon credentials, with a 59:16 career best from Rotterdam last year, and in 2005 clocked 59:05 on the slightly downhill course at the Great North Run in South Shields, England. It’s a mark he’ll be gunning for this weekend if the conditions allow.
"I'll try to beat my best tomorrow if the weather is okay," he said.
As the reigning champion, history is not on Tadesse’s side. Including the World Half Marathon Championships, which began in 1992, only Paul Tergat, with his back-to-back victories in 1999 and 2000, has won the title twice.
“I just hope I can run my best,” Tadesse said.
Wanjiru, not yet 21, has already begun piecing together a stellar resume in the half marathon. Of his seven races over the distance since 2005, he’s dipped under the one hour mark in all but two, and of the three men who’ve bettered 59 minutes, he’s the only one who’s done it twice. He was more cautious with world record talk for this weekend, but isn’t discounting the possibility either.
"I'm in good condition but I'm not sure whether I can take the record but my target is to win the race,” he said. “If the conditions are good, I will try to break the (world) record."
While the race returns to its original half marathon format on the quick Udine course, it’s not necessarily a permanent move. When the championship was repackaged last year, the distance to be run wasn’t set in stone, IAAF General Secretary Pierre Weiss said, in order to give more flexibility to the event organizers. “It can be 15k, it can be 20k,” he said.
In addition to six-deep prize money --winners receive $30,000, runners-up $15,000-- world record bonuses of $50,000 are on offer for the half marathon distance, as well as for en route performances for 10km, 15km and 20km.
[PHOTOS: Zersenay Tadesse and Samuel Wanjiru in Udine. Mandatory credit: Bob Ramsak.]
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