|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Rodgers impressed by field Four-time winner favors Kenyan Chebet in Sunday's race
Posted: Saturday November 06, 1999 08:50 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- Bill Rodgers, four-time winner of the New York City Marathon, scanned the entries for this year's race and marveled at the quality of the field. "Obviously, it has a lot of depth," said Rodgers, voted the No. 1 male runner in the race's 30-year history. "This race has a history of guys getting beat and coming back (to win). It happened to me." The persistent Rodgers placed fifth in his first New York appearance in 1974, then returned in 1976 and began his string of consecutive victories. With that in mind, Rodgers seemed to be favoring Kenyan Joseph Chebet to end countryman Joseph Kagwe's two-year winning streak in Sunday's race that has attracted a field of 30,000. Chebet finished second to Kagwe in the past two New York City Marathons, then beat Kagwe at the Boston Marathon in April. Chebet, who also finished second to Moses Tanui at Boston in 1998, was three seconds behind Kagwe last year in New York. After the race, he said, "I may have to change my tactics. It's hard to take second-place finishes so often.' Chebet's frustration ended seven months ago at Boston, where he burst into the lead with just over 4 miles remaining and went on to win in 2 hours, 9 minutes, 52 seconds, the slowest of his last five marathons. The time didn't matter, winning did. "What's important is Joseph won a race in America," his coach, Dr. Gabriele Rosa, said. Rodgers now thinks Chebet can make it two victories in a row. "His race in Boston was wonderful," said Rodgers, who also won the Boston Marathon four times. "Here, I don't think he'll wait around this year to make his move. He can't wait until the last quarter-mile or mile. I think he'll go at 22 miles." Just like he did at Boston. And just like Kagwe did in winning the past two New York races. Kagwe, like Chebet, also lost in his first two appearances in New York, placing fifth in his debut in 1995 and fourth in 1996. And like Chebet, he learned, making his decisive move at the 22-mile mark in each of his two victories. He claimed he lost the 1996 race "because I kept an eye on the key guys and they didn't move." Many of the elite in the field this year likely will be keeping an eye on Kagwe and Chebet, though Kagwe might not be as strong as in the past. "He looks so thin," Rodgers said. "You can see in his face that he's not 100 percent," Mexico's German Silva, the 1994 and 1995 New York champion said. "Maybe he's injured. Maybe it's psychological." Despite those fuzzy observations, Carey Pinkowski, race director of the Chicago Marathon, thinks Kagwe can win again. "This race has a great inventory of athletes, with a lot of savvy," Pinkowski said. "This will be a tactical race. It's more difficult to predict than a track meet like our race is. This is a marathon. "It favors Kagwe, who is more experienced and knows when to surge. You've got to go with the defending champion. "This race is like a puzzle and he's figured it out a couple of times." The Chicago course is flat compared to the undulating terrain of New York, and two weeks ago it produced the fastest marathon in history - 2:05:42 by Morocco's Khalid Khannouchi. No one ever has broken 2:08:00 in New York, with Juma Ikangaa of Tanzania holding the record of 2:08:01 set 10 years ago. Kagwe has the second-fastest time, 2:08:12, in 1997, when he stopped twice to tie his shoelaces. Race director Allan Steinfeld thinks there's a possibility that Ikangaa's mark could be broken this year because of the high quality of the field, which he calls the "best ever" for New York. Besides Kagwe, attempting to become the first male to win the race three straight times since Alberto Salazar in 1980-82, and Chebet, trying to become the first to sweep Boston and New York since Salazar in 1982, there will be several serious challengers for the title. Included are three-time Boston Marathon champion Cosmas Ndeti of Kenya, 1999 London Marathon winner Abdelkhader Mouaziz of Morocco, 1995 world champion Martin Fiz of Spain and 1998 New York third-place finisher Zebedayo Bayo of Tanzania. Also 1996 New York winner Giacomo Leone of Italy, two-time Rock 'n' Roll Marathon champion Philip Tarus of Kenya, and 1999 Boston runner-up Silvio Guerra of Ecuador. Silva also is competing, but he has been injured recently and will be only a pacesetter. The elite women's field is not as deep as the men's, but includes defending champion Franca Fiacconi of Italy, 1998 New York runner-up Adriana Fernandez of Mexico, two-time Road Runner of the Year Catherine Ndereba of Kenya, 1996 New York winner Anuta Catuna of Romania, and 38-year-old Katrin Dorre-Heinig of Germany, winner of 23 of 42 marathons. The remarkable Dorre-Heinig has won marathons throughout the world, but never in the United States. This will be only her second appearance at New York. In her first in 1990, she finished third, but vowed not to come back. "All things were crazy for me then," she said. "I didn't know where to eat or train. It was my first time in America." It took her nine years to reconsider. She is coming off the fastest race of her career, a 2:24:35 clocking at Hamburg, Germany, in April. The only faster woman in the field is Fernandez, who broke her Mexican record in April in finishing second in the London Marathon at 2:24:06. The strongest of the women's runners is Fiacconi, who finished second at New York in 1996 and third in 1997. Unlike most marathoners, she is not afraid to run more than two or three marathons a year. Sometimes, she has run marathons with only two or three weeks' rest. "If it were up to me, I would run 12 marathons a year," she said. The men's and women's winners Sunday are guaranteed $50,000 each plus a new car. They can earn additional prize money based on their times.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
