2010 Chicago Marathon - World Record Attempt by Wanjiru



Picture 1 - Samuel Wanjiru, from Kenya, to attack the world marathon set by Haile Gebreselassie and win in the  2010 Bank of America Chicago Marathon on this Sunday.

Samuel will be running in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Sunday, 10th October, where he will be defending his title and also attack Haile Gebreselassie’s World Marathon record time of 2:03;59. What is interesting is that Chicago is a flat course and Samuel is in a very good shape. Hence, the men's competition at Chicago, a World Marathon Majors (WMM) event, remains very competitive.

A point to note is that that Olympic champion, Samuel Wanjiru will have to go on head on with 2010 Virgin London Marathon champion Tsegaye Kebede, and 2010 Boston Marathon champion Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot. The 2009/2010 WMM points title is likely to be decided in Chicago with the $500,000 winner-take-all prize going to either Wanjiru or Kebede Patrick Makau of Kenya and Aberu Kebede of Ethiopia won the running of the real,-Berlin Marathon with fast times.

Makau, 25, and fellow Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai, 28, battled it out in the Rotterdam Marathon last April, and finished first and second, respectively. Makau won in 2:05:08, two seconds slower to Mutai. As such, these two men have clocked the four fastest marathon times in the world this year - 2:04:48 and 2:05:08. As for Makau the marathon times were 2:04:55 and 2:05:10 for Mutai.

Ethihopia's Bazo Worku (2:05:25) and Yemane Tsegay (2:07:52) ended as top 4. The interesting fact was that the athletes from Africa took the top-8 spots while the first Asian was Japan's Masakazu Fujiwara in ninth place (2:12:00), and the top European was Spain's Jose Carlos Hernandez in 11th place (2:13:46).

Ken Nakamura, a statistician from Japan considers Berlin as the fastest men's marathon race of all-time based on the average of the best ten marks from the race:2:05:10.

Women's winner Kebede, 21, was ranked first with exactly a minute faster than same country runner Bezunesh Bekele, 27, in 2:23:58(pb). Japan's Tomo Morimoto finished third in 2:26:10 and Germany's Sabrina Mockenhaupt got fourth in 2:26:21, a personal best by one second.