Firehiwot Dado, Agnes Kiprop join Frankfurt Marathon field

The women’s field for the Commerzbank Frankfurt Marathon on October 25 has considerably grown in strength with the addition of the Kenya’s Agnes Kiprop and Ethiopia’s Firehiwot Dado, both winners of big spring marathons this year. While Kiprop took the Turin Marathon Firehiwot won in Rome.
The Commerzbank Frankfurt Marathon, which boosts a new title sponsor, is an IAAF Gold Label Road Race.

Regarding the depth of the elite field assembled so far the women’s race will have the best quality ever in the history of the event. And it is expected that there will be further additions to both the women’s and men’s event soon.

Firehiwot clocked a personal best in the Marathon this year as well. When she won the Rome Marathon in March she achieved a massive improvement from a previous personal best of 2:37:34 to a fine 2:27:08. She will also be aiming to further improve on the fast Frankfurt course. The 25-year-old has not raced since her surprise win in Rome and has fully concentrated on preparing well for her autumn Marathon.

Kiprop comes to the Commerzbank Frankfurt Marathon unbeaten this year. The 29-year-old Kenyan has won her two major races in 2009 and produced personal bests in both. First she took the Turin Marathon in spring with a fine 2:26:22 and five weeks before her race in Frankfurt she also won the Turin Half Marathon. There she ran 1:09:54.

Besides Kiprop and Firehiwot three more runners have been added to the women’s field: Irene Limika (Kenya), Shitaye Gemechu (Ethiopia) as well as Germany’s Luminita Zaituc.

Limika ran her marathon debut in Frankfurt in 2008 and had done well, finishing fourth in 2:28:31, still her personal best. This year she was second at the Nagano Marathon in 2:30:00. Shitaye is an experienced marathon runner, who improved her personal best by five seconds in 2008 when she placed fourth at the Paris Marathon with 2:26:10. This year she was fifth at the Tokyo Marathon. Luminita Zaituc is still the fourth fastest German woman marathoner ever. She clocked 2:26:01 when winning the Frankfurt Marathon in 2001.

Kenyans Rose Cheruiyot and Ruth Wanjiru had been signed earlier for the race. In 2008 the 33-year-old Cheruiyot was fourth in the Dubai Marathon with a personal best of 2:25:48. Later in the year she placed fourth again in Berlin. The 27-year-old Wanjiru was seventh in Osaka this year and has a personal best of 2:27:38.

At the 28th edition of Germany’s oldest city Marathon organizers expect a record entry of up to 13,000 runners. (IAAF)

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