World Champions To Debut At The ING New York City Marathon 2007
The ING New York City Marathon, the most distinguished event of the New York Road Runners, is known all over the world as among the best experiences and spectacles in road racing one can have. With a finish line that is seemingly permanently fixed on New York's Central Park and with an average of two million live spectators to add to the three hundred million television spectators all over the globe, the ING New York City Marathon gives runners everywhere an ideal venue to challenge themselves to aim higher. Every year, no less than ninety-eight thousand athletically-inclined individuals (a good number of whom are professional athletes with international claims to fame) apply for this amazing race just for the experience – the prize of more than six hundred thousand American dollars is merely an added bonus.
This year's ING New York City Marathon, to be held on the fourth of November 2007, is not going to be any different when it comes to challenge and excitement. It was announced by the CEO, president and race director of the New York Road Runners, Mary Wittenberg, on the twenty-sixth of September 2007 that two world champions have signed up to make their debut on the ING New York City Marathon.
Kenya's twenty-year-old Samuel Wanjiru, the half-marathon dynamo who had lowered its world record thrice in the last three years, is the one that seems to be generating the most excitement. At the age of eighteen, Wanjiru had already run a half-marathon that clocked an astounding fifty-nine minutes and sixteen seconds, beating the record set by Paul Tergat in 1998 by one second. The next two record-breakers were both set in 2007 – the first being a fifty-eight minute and thirty-three second run back in February and the second being twenty seconds faster in March.
“Sammy rocked the running world by running faster than anyone else at the half-marathon distance, faster than any of the stars of our sport, including the veterans of this year's field,” Wittenberg says of the young participant in the official press release. “His true test will be the marathon distance.”
Twenty-eight Dmytro Baranovsky of the Ukraine, will also be making his debut in America at the ING New York City Marathon. Baranovsky won the Fukuoka Marathon back in 2005, and took second place in 2006. He is known to have set a national record, running last year's Fukuoka race with a time of two hours, seven minutes, and fifteen seconds.
The two men will be going up against some very tough competition indeed; other participants include Kenyan Flora London Marathon winner Martin Lel, South African Hendrick Ramaala (a former ING New York City Marathon champion), last year's runner up Stephen Kiogora – also from Kenya – and defending champion Marilson Gomes dos Santos from Brazil. This year, they will all be competing for seven hundred thousand American dollars.
