Press Release - Vienna City Marathon - 5/14/04

                            Contact:
                             General information: Andreas Meier 			
                                                  (Press Officer) 
                                                  - Tel: +43 - 650 350 1488
                                  Elite Athletes: Mark Milde 
                                                  (Elite Race Director) 
                                                  - Tel: +49 - 179 394 8276
                                  International Press Service: Jörg Wenig 
                                                  - Tel: +49 - 170 416 7531

21st Vienna City Marathon on Sunday:

Lidia Simon wants to show she is back and qualify for Athens

Lidia Simon, one of the world's top women marathon runners of the last 
decade, has chosen Sunday's 21st Vienna City Marathon to qualify for the 
Olympic Marathon in Athens in August. Romania's national qualifying time of 
2:37:00 should be no hurdle for the national record holder (2:22:54). In 
its 20 year history the Vienna City Marathon has never before seen such a 
strong woman runner as Lidia Simon. Sunday's marathon will once again be 
Austria's biggest single day sporting event of the year. Adding runners who 
will participate at shorter distances, organisers of the Vienna City 
Marathon expect about 20,000 athletes to take part.

It is nearly three years ago when Lidia Simon celebrated the biggest win of 
her outstanding career. The Romanian won the marathon at the World 
Championships in Edmonton. A year earlier she had won the Olympic silver 
medal. Since neither Olympic Champion Naoko Takahashi (Japan) nor the 
bronze medal winner from Sydney Joyce Chepchumba (Kenya) were selected for 
Athens Simon could be the only marathon runner with a medal from the 
previous games. She was second in 2000 finishing just eight seconds behind 
Takahashi.

In 2002 Simon interrupted her career due to pregnancy. It was on Christmas 
Eve when she gave birth to a son (Cristian). Last autumn she came back to 
marathon running, but only finished in a time beyond 2:40 at the Chicago 
Marathon. 

Speaking at a press conference today the 30 year-old runner said she should 
be able to show a much better performance on Sunday: "In general I feel 
physically stronger after giving birth. And I hope to run faster times in 
future. As for Sunday I will look for a first half of about 73 minutes. 
That should be relatively easy for me, so I hope to cover the second half a 
bit faster." 

It will be a tougher job for Sonia Oberem to qualify for Athens, which was 
supposed to be her final marathon race. Since the German qualifying 
standard is set at 2:30:00 and Oberem had injury problems until April she 
is not sure whether her training will be good enough to snatch a very last 
ticket for the Olympics. "I remember Vienna well. So it was my first choice 
to run here", Oberem said. The 31 year-old German was third in Vienna four 
years ago clocking 2:27:25. Besides her bronze medal from the European 
Championships in 2002 she has an extraordinary world championships' record: 
Oberem finished 8th, 7th, 6th and 5th between 1995 and 2001. Additionally 
she was 8th at the Olympics in 1996.

In contrast the men's top contenders will not run for a ticket to Athens on 
Sunday. Kenyans Moses Tanui, Raymond Kipkoech, Samson Kandie, Matthew Sigei 
and Patrick Chumba are regarded as potential winners. "I hope to be able to 
run a sub 2:10 time. My training went very well", Moses Tanui said. At 38 
years he wants to show that he can still cope with his countrymen. But 
there will be a chase for Athens in the men's race as well. Austria's best 
marathon runner Michael Buchleitner hopes to finish inside 2:13:00 and may 
be even break the 18 year-old national record. It was Gerhard Hartmann who 
won the Vienna City Marathon back in 1986 clocking 2:12:22.