Women’s lineup includes Letay Hadish, Desta Girma


No less than 10,778 runners will gather on Sunday, April 25, to take part in the 33rd ‘Maratón Popular de Madrid’.

This event is an IAAF Silver Label Road Race and has attracted a number of fine specialists over the 42,195m distance. In addition, the contest will double as the Spanish Championships.

Historically, the altitude of Madrid (695m above the sea level) and the undulating profile of its circuit has defeated the purpose of recording fast times; actually, the course records remain at 2:11:30 and 2:32:04 but the field assembled for Sunday promises serious attacks on those performances.

In the men’s section, the standout athlete is Ethiopia’s Dereje Tesfaye Gebrehiwot. The 24-year-old was a respectable 12th at last year’s IAAF World Half Marathon championships in Birmingham where he clocked 1:02:09 time although his fastest time is a 1:00:02 run he managed in Den Haag (The Netherlands) in March 2009. Tesfaye’s last appearance in the Marathon was in Fukuoka, Japan, last 6 December when he took fourth in a career best of 2:08:36.

But Tesfaye will have to fight very hard against a large group of Kenyans led by Alex Kirui, a 2:09:38 athlete, who also holds a 1:02:17 Half Marathon best ran on the Spanish soil of Granollers last year, and Ben Kipruto Chebet, winner at the 2009 Padova Marathon in a PB of 2:09:42.

The European response should be given by the Spaniards plus Russia’s Grigory Andreev (14th at the Beijing Olympics) and Portugal’s Fernando Silva, a fine cross country specialist who has tackled the road events over the last few years with 1:02:58 and 2:12:09 times as his best accomplishments.

Among the locals, the Spanish champion will automatically be selected for the European Championships to be held in Barcelona this summer so long as the performance is under 2:15:00 on Sunday.

On a curious note, there are several athletes who had scheduled to compete at the Vienna Marathon last week looking for the qualifying time for the Europeans but were instead forced to contest the Madrid event as it was impossible for them to get Vienna due to the cloud of volcanic ash which was hanging over Europe last week.

In the absence of the top Spanish marathoner Chema Martínez, Iván Galán, Miguel Ángel Gamonal, David Solís, Fernando Rey and Asier Cuevas will be looking for gaining selection for Barcelona.

The women’s line-up includes Kenya’s Magdaline Chemjor, the 2007 Amsterdam Marathon winner thanks to a 2:28:16 run. The 31-year-old also has a fine 1:09:39 Half Marathon performance to her credit.

Her stiffest opposition should come for the experienced Portuguese Ana Dias. The 36-year-old, who finished 44th a the World Cross Country Championships a month ago, made her last marathon appearance in Venice last fall where she finished in 2:30:12, not particularly far from her career best of 2:28:49 from Berlin back in 2003.

Other entrants are Poland’s former (2001 & 2004) European XC medallist Justyna Bak, holder of a 2:30:45 time over the distance; the Ethiopian pair of Hadish Letay Negash (2:31:12) and Desta Girma Tadesse, the 2010 Seville Marathon victor in 2:34:53 although she ran 2:33:11 the previous year there.

Weather forecasters predict a nice day with temperatures ranging between 14 and 23º Celseus.