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This years ING New York City Marathon is going to be an exciting one. The largest marathon in the world will see a return of Paula Radcliffe to marathon running after one year, and giving her a tough fight would be top class runners in the form of Salina Kosgei from Kenya, Dire Tune and Derarta Tulu from Ethiopia, and Tatayana Petrova from Russia.
Paula Radcliffe
Spearheading this field would be the world record holder Paula Radcliffe, 35, of the United Kingdom.The three time winner at NYC would be seeking her 4th title here, which incidentally would be her first marathon after winning the last years race (she won the NYC Half marathon in between, though, and had long injury layoffs in between). I would rate her an out-an-out favorite to take her 4th title, though she has some tough competition. She either finishes first or does not finish, only two guesses.
Salina Kosgei
Kosgei, 32, made her lone New York start in 2005 when she was fourth in 2:25:30. In April, the Kenyan won the closest Boston Marathon women’s race in history by crossing line in 2:32:16 to beat Dire Tune by a second. Kosgei was fourth at the 2008 London Marathon and 10th in the Beijing Olympic marathon.
Derartu Tulu
Tulu, 37, won Olympic 10,000m gold in 1992 and 2000, and took bronze at the 2004 Athens Games. She also captured World Championship gold at 10,000m in 2001 – the same year she finished third in the London Marathon. Tulu has raced the New York City Marathon once before, finishing third in 2005. Tulu is making a comeback; she finished fourth in 1:10:33 at the ING Philadelphia Distance Run half-marathon this September.
Dire Tune
Tune, 24, won the 2008 Boston Marathon by two seconds over Russia’s Alevtina Biktimirova in what was then the closest finish in the event’s century-plus history. Amazingly, she then lost the 2009 race by one second to Kenya’s Salina Kosgei. She won the Houston Marathon in both 2007 and 2008, the latter in 2:24:40, a course record and her personal best. She ran a personal best of 1:07:18 at the RAK Half-Marathon in February of this year.
Tatyana Petrova
Primarily a steeplechaser, Russian Petrova, 26, finished fourth in that event at the Beijing Olympic Games after taking the silver medal at the 2007 IAAF World Championships. She made an impressive jump to the marathon this year, winning in Los Angeles in 2:25:59 and taking fourth in Dubai in 2:25:53, and could be amongst the medals at NYC.
The ING New York City Marathon is an IAAF Gold Label Road Race.
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