Disi set to go

Rwanda’s ace runs in maiden full marathon Men’s Marathon 11.30Live on SS5 RWANDA’S leading long distance athlete Dieudonne Disi is all set to prove he can deliver on the world stage. The 29-year-old will compete in his maiden full marathon race this morning against switching from his specialty 10,000m at the end of last year’s Beijing Olympic Games. In the absence of world champion Haile Gebrselassie and 2008 Olympic champion Sammy Wanjiru, the national record holder’s major threats lie in Kenya’s Duncan Kibet and Jaoub Gharib from Morocco. Kibet caused a stir when he ran a joint Kenyan marathon record of 2:04.27 with James Kwambai in winning the Rotterdam Marathon last April in a course record time. Kibet also holds the Milan Marathon record at 2:07.53. To date, Gharib still stands out as the only athlete to win two world marathon titles. The 37-year-old won the titles in 2003 and 2005 before finishing second in Beijing. Early this year, he also notched a personal best time of 2:05:27 in London to signal that he is in the best form of his life. Besides Kibet, Kenya has fielded a formidable team with the ‘slowest’ team member, Benjamin Kiptoo, having a PB of 2:07:17. The fastest member of the team and the sixth-fastest man of all-time incidentally is Abel Kirui. He improved to 2:05:04 this year to finish third in Rotterdam. Other contenders are Daniel Rono, Emmanuel Mutai, Robert Cheruiyot, Tsegaye Kebede and Deriba Merga,Yemane Tsegaye,(2:06:30), Deressa Edae (2:07:54 PB) and Dejene Yirdawe (2:08:30 PB),Moroccan duo Rachid Kisri (2:06:48 PB) and Abderrahim Goumri (2:05:30 PB); Eritrean entrants Yared Asmeron (fourth in Osaka and eighth in Beijing) and Yonas Kifle (2:07:34 PB); and Japanese trio Atsushi Sato (2:07:13 PB), Arata Fujiwara (2:08:40 PB) and Kazuhiro Maeda (2:11:01 PB). Disi, who has been training at the high-altitude areas of Font-Romeu in France, has a personal best time of 2:12:51 which he recorded in the Paris Marathon early this year. The 42.195km marathon race will start and end at the Brandenburg Gate which used to be a city gate and remains one of the main symbols of Berlin and Germany. Rwanda’s other representative at the world championship Epiphanie Nyirabarame will run in the women marathon tomorrow. Ends

Lifestyle

Disi set to go