Marathon choice too close to call

On January 17 this year, Athletics Kenya announced that they had considered over 200 athletes before coming up with a selection of six men and six women marathon runners in their provisional squad for the London Olympics.

This must have been a difficult and marathon under taking for AK considering the awesome talent knocking for a place in the team.

Kenyan men own seven of the 10 all time best marathon times in history and 62 of the best 100 times while their female counterparts own three of the top 10 best and 26 of the best 100 times ever ran.

AK chairman Isaiah Kiplagat admitted as much during the announcement saying over 150 Kenyan male marathoners had breached the Category A qualifying time of 2 hrs 15 min.

Making the provisional men’s squad were World marathon record holder Patrick Makau (PB 2:03:38), the fastest marathon runner in history Geoffrey Mutai (2:03:02) and reigning world marathon champion Abel Kirui (2:05:04).

Others were the second fastest marathon runner in history and 2011 Chicago champion Moses Mosop (2:03:06), Wilson Kipsang (2:03:42) and 2011 London champion Emmanuel Mutai (2:04:40).

Pulled out of race

After evaluating over 50 women AK picked 2011 London champion Mary Keitany, World Champion Edna Kiplagat, Berlin champion Florence Kiplagat and World silver medallist Priscah Jeptoo.

Others were New Delhi champion Sharon Cherop and Praha champion Lydia Cheromei.

Kiplagat went on to say that the selection was based on ranking, consistency and World Athletic Championships results.

When some of the spring marathons, notably Rotterdam, Boston and London – and in which the main characters had entered – were held, things were meant to become more straightforward.

Instead, the results have thrown a twist in the selection process as some of the supposedly red-hot items spectacularly cooled off while those not on the rudder blew hot.

New London Marathon champion Kipsang, dismantled a high-quality field that included fellow Olympic Emmanuel Mutai, Makau and Kirui.

In fact, the world record holding Makau pulled out half way through the race, while Kirui and Emmanuel Mutai finished a disappointing sixth and seventh respectively.

Second was the on-the-comeback-trial Martin Lel, who showed he still had it in him at 34 years in a 2:06:51 sprint finish. He commands a personal best of 2:05:15 and said he would not mind being considered for London.

A week earlier in Rotterdam, Mosop, who was going for a world record could only manage third position while, the fastest marathon runner in the world Geoffrey Mutai retired hurt in Boston.

The women’s selection looks much easier. Keitany defended her London title in a time of 2:18:37 to become the third fastest marathon runner in history, with compatriots Edna Kiplagat (2:19:50) and Jeptoo (2:20:14) finishing second and third respectively.

Then there is Florence Kiplagat who owns a personal best of 2:19:44 obtained when she won the 2011 Berlin race on her marathon debut.

AK will have had just two days to grapple with this welcome selection headache before naming the six world beating marathoners on Wednesay.