MANCHESTER IS GRANDEST OF ALL TURKEY TROTS
By David Monti
(c) 2008 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Used with permission.
It's
not the oldest, or even the biggest, of the hundreds of "turkey trots"
which will be held on Thanksgiving Day in the United States on
Thursday, but the Manchester Road Race is surely the grandest. Amongst
the nearly 10,000 athletes which organizers expect to complete the
4.748 mile course will be national and international class runners, who
want to join the race's prestigious winner's list.
"It usually
is difficult to field elites in the Fall after the Olympics, but I feel
we have a remarkably stong field of veterans and youngsters," wrote
David Prindiville, who organizes the elite athletes for the race, in an
e-mail message.
Two-time men's champion Andrew Letherby of
Australia would like to see his name added to that winner's list one
more time. The 35 year-old Commonwealth Games medalist, out-legged
Irish Olympian Martin Fagan on the race's famous uphill finish last
year. Less than two seconds separated them, and USA steeplechaser
Brian Olinger was just another five seconds behind.
"Letherby,
Fagan and Olinger are set to battle again," wrote Prindiville. "Mark
(Carroll) is back to chase, and (so are) a large group composed of
Haron Lagat, Darren Brown, Fasil Bizuneh, Christian Hesch, Mike
Sayenko, Andrew Lemoncello, Andrew Carlson, and Seth Summerside.
The
2007 women's champion and USA Olympian, Amy Begley, had to withdraw
from the race due to unspecified injury problems. That leaves
Ethiopian-born Teyba Naser as the race favorite, but five-time
Manchester champion and two-time Olympian Amy Rudolph also hopes to be
in the hunt for victory. Other contenders include USA steeplechaser
Delilah DiCrescenzo, former University of Iowa star Diane Nukuri of
Burundi, all-purpose road racer Alemtehsay Misganaw of Ethiopia, former
NCAA D-II champion for Grand Valley Mandi Zemba, former American
University star Samia Akbar, and recent NTELOS 8-K champion Jane Murage
of Kenya.
The hilly course is very challenging. The event
records of 21:19, set by Phillimon Hanneck of Zimbabwe in 1995, and
23:59 set by the late Emilie Mondor of Canada in 2003, will be hard to
beat.