Duncan Kibet is a football fan. Taking the 9th Samsung Milan City Marathon on Sunday with a course record of 2:07:53 that fits very well to the venue. Milan is of course well known for the two famous clubs Inter and AC. But it was probably wise that he left the shirt of his favourite club at home this time: When he had come to run his debut marathon in Vienna this April he wore the jersey of Manchester United with ,Ronaldo’ on the back. “I like football. So back home in Kenya I sometimes go to watch the national team playing in Nairobi,” says Duncan Kibet.
With his winning time the Kenyan has confirmed the position of the Samsung Milan City Marathon as Italy’s fastest marathon of the year. In 2009 the race will be staged for the 10th time on 22nd November.
But even if he should return to the football city in 2009 Duncan Kibet’s interest for this sport will not distract him from his passion for running. Known as a frontrunner before he started running marathons this year he has adapted fine to the different tactics. It is important to save energy by following the pacemakers in a marathon. Duncan Kibet did this in a very warm Vienna City Marathon clocking a fine debut time of 2:08:33 in April and he did it again in a very cool Samsung Milan City Marathon to improve by 40 seconds.
“I have now run two very good marathons and I clearly see myself as a marathon runner,” says Duncan Kibet, who did only run one 10 k event in between his races in Vienna and Milan. Concentrating on his marathon training he did up to 180 kilometres per week. Compared to other world-class runners this is still not that much and it suggests that there is quite some room for further improvement. “I have more potential in the marathon,” says the 30 year-old and adds: “My training for Milan was excellent and I owe this to my coach Claudio Berardelli.” The Italian coach, who works for the management group of Dr. Gabriele Rosa, spends up to eight months in a year in Kenya to train a group of marathon runners.
“Duncan did his training in a group together with James Kwambai, who was second in Berlin, Evans Cheruiyot, who won the Chicago Marathon, and Paul Kirui, the winner of the Amsterdam Marathon,” explains Claudio Berardelli, who thinks that there is a lot more to come from Duncan Kibet in the future. “He will be able to do much better than today in the future. A time of 2:06 will be possible for him,” says Claudio Berardelli, who might well take Duncan Kibet to an Italian football match one day. But it will not be in Milan then, because the coach supports Juventus Torino!
More information is available online at: www.milanocitymarathon.it.
Duncan Kibet. Photo credit: Victah Sailer/photorun.net
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