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Jul-23-2010
Name Confusion Persists: Cheruiyot Or Cheruiyot?
by David Monti
(c) Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
CASTELBUONO, Italy (23-Jul) -- Boston Marathon champion Robert K. Cheruiyot is indeed running the 85th Giro Podistico di Castelbuono here on Monday, Italy's oldest competitive road race, as organized announced in Palermo two days ago.
Then again, he isn't.
The Kenyan who will be trying to defeat top-seeded athletes Samuel Wanjiru, Zersenay Tadese and Vincent Kipruto here is Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot, the 2010 Boston Marathon champion and course record holder. Four-time Boston Marathon champion (and former course record holder), and the champion at the Castelbuono race in 2006, Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, will not be competing, a fact confirmed via text message from his manager, Federico Rosa, who is in Moncton, Canada, for the IAAF World Junior Championships.
The Cheruiyot confusion stemmed from an athlete biography package which was produced by a third-party statistician hired by the organizers here and distributed to the media on Tuesday at a press conference in Palermo. The error wasn't discovered until yesterday when Race Results Weekly was contacted by Rosa.
Interestingly, the switch in Cheruiyots probably makes the field here even stronger. Kiprono Cheruiyot's sensational 2:05:52 in Boston last April, the fastest marathon ever run without pacemakers, toppled the elder Cheruiyot's mark by over a minute. Kiprono Cheruiyot is coming off of a solid performance at the Bupa Great North 10-K in Sunderland, England, last Sunday where he clocked 28:51.
Wanjiru, the Olympic Marathon gold medalist, and Tadese, the four-time world road running champion, remain the favorites for victory here, however. Kipruto is the defending champion.
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