Marathon News - Wami To Defend Berlin Marathon Title

Aug-17-2007

Wami To Defend Berlin Marathon Title
by David Monti
(c) Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

Three-time Olympic medalist Gete Wami will defend her title at the 34thrunning of the real, Berlin Marathon, race organizers announced today. Wami, who set an Ethiopian record of 2:21:34 at Berlin last year (sincesurpassed by Berhane Adere), is currently sitting in second place in the2006/2007 World Marathon Majors rankings with 40 points, 15 points behindleader Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia. Should Wami win at Berlin, she wouldhave 65 points and would vault into the lead for the $500,000 prize to beawarded to the points series leader after November's ING New York CityMarathon, the last race in the current series. Also announced for the Sept. 30 marathon were Japan's Naoko Sakamoto(2:21:51 PB), Russia's Irina Timofeyewa (2:25:29), Poland's Grazyna Syrek(2:26:22) and Germany's Irina Mikitenko, who will be attempting to completeher first marathon. The real, Berlin Marathon was the fifth-largest marathon in the world lastyear with 30,118 finishers, according to Running USA, an industry tradeassociation. With one of the fastest courses in the world, the race is thehome of the men's world record: 2:04:55 set by Kenyan Paul Tergat in 2003.