Olympic Marathon Preview: Women

August 12, 2008

The women’s marathon of this years Olympic Games will take place on August, 17th (7.30 local time Beijing). Who are the favourites? Who are the underdogs?
The IAAF-rankings of this years performances in the marathon is as follows:
2:22:38 Yingying Zhang CHN
2:22:42 Berhane Adere ETH
2:22:53 Galina Bogomolova RUS
2:24:14 Irina Timofeyeva RUS
2:24:39 Svetlana Zakharova RUS
2:24:40 Dire Tune ETH
2:25:10 Mara Yamauchi GBR
2:25:33 Martha Komu KEN
2:25:37 Gete Wami ETH

Several race favorites have not run a serious marathon in 2008 and therefore this year’s ranking is not too meaningful.
Unlike the men’s race, the women will go out much faster and the Asians, i.e. the Japanese and the Chinese will put a lot of pressure on the field. Especially the Chinese have a lot of pressure from their home crowd and it remains to be seen if they can meet the expectations. A big question mark is the world record holder Paula Radcliffe, who suffered from an injury most of 2008 but reportedly put 8-9hours of training/day in her preparation. However the real mileage is missing and Paula might suffer after 30-35km when the muscular factor is coming into play.
The Ethiopians and Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba are other challengers for the Japanese and Chinese.

Also Germany is represented in the woman’s marathon. After the withdrawal of Irina Mikitenko (PB: 2:24:14h) the German marathon team is reduced to two participants: Susanne Hahn (PB: 2:29:35h) and Melanie Kraus (PB: 2:27:57h). A placement between 20 and 40 would be an achievement for both of them and more should not be expected.