BOSTON: Defending champion Wesley Korir, who recently won a seat in Kenya’s parliament, said his goal in today’s Boston Marathon will be to make his countrymen proud with another victory, but he will face a fast field of fellow Kenyans and Ethiopians on the way.
“My first priority now is to represent the people of Kenya well and they would be very happy to see me first,” Korir said yesterday about his race strategy.
“For that I will have to run very hard. The best in shape will win the race.”
As Korir and a handful of fellow east Africans -- Kenyans and Ethiopians have dominated Boston’s notoriously grueling marathon course for a quarter century -- make final preparations for Boston’s 117th running, talk swirled about Korir’s fitness.
Since sweating through high temperatures to win here in two hours 12 minutes and 40 seconds last year, Korir, who earned his college degree in Kentucky, said the campaign and now his work as a lawmaker have taken time away from racing.
He insists he has had plenty of time to train, however and said: “I’m about to see how much time being in parliament took away from running.”
Nipping at his heels for a chunk of the $806,000 prize purse will be Ethiopian Lelisa Desisa Benti, 23, who boasts the field’s fastest time, having won his first-ever marathon in Dubai in January in two hours four minutes and 45 seconds. “On paper this is a great field,” said Amby Burfoot, editor-at-large at Runner’s World.reuters
