Frankfurt Marathon: Vivian Cheruiyot the main focus at Frankfurt

Kenya's Vivian Jepkemoi Cheruiyot celebrates after she won the Women's 5000m Final during the athletics event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on August 19, 2016. / AFP PHOTO

When Vivian Cheruiyot stands on the start line for the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon today, she will become the first ever Olympic champion to contest the IAAF Gold Label road race.

The Frankfurt Marathon has something of a reputation for acting as a springboard for a number of promising marathon runners.

Wilson Kipsang is perhaps the most prominent example.

He won in Frankfurt with 2:04:57 in 2010 and then returned a year later to win again in a still-standing course record of 2:03:42, missing the world record by only four seconds.

Two years later, Kipsang broke the world record in Berlin.

Back in 2008 Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot travelled to Frankfurt for his first race outside Kenya and ended up winning in a course record of 2:07:21. Just 18 months later, he won the 2010 Boston Marathon with a course record of 2:05:52.

“The Mainova Frankfurt Marathon is an immersion heater for elite athletes,” said race director Jo Schindler during the press conference ahead of the 36th edition today.

“Hopefully the next runner to take a major step in her marathon career here in Frankfurt is Vivian Cheruiyot.”

Indeed, the Olympic 5000m champion from Kenya might be the one who could turn up the heat in the marathon market after Sunday’s race.

Before winning in Rio last year, Cheruiyot had won five world titles: two at 5000m (2009 and 2011), two at 10,000m (2011 and 2015) and one at cross country (2011).

“I’ll run hard and I want to improve my personal best,” said Cheruiyot, who ran 2:23:50 on her marathon debut in London earlier this year and heads to Frankfurt off the back of a 1:07:44 half marathon PB set at last month’s Great North Run.

The plan is to go through halfway in 1:10:00 to give the leaders a chance of finishing within 2:20. It would also give them a chance of breaking the course record of 2:21:01 set by Ethiopia’s Meselech Melkamu five years ago and pocketing the €30,000 bonus that goes with it.

“I expect we’ll be paying out on that bonus,” said elite race coordinator Christoph Kopp. The aim is a course record for the women.”

But Cheruiyot is just one of a number of athletes capable of winning on Sunday.

There are five women on the entry list with faster marathon times than the Olympic champion.

With a best of 2:20:27, set when finishing second at the 2014 Berlin Marathon, Ethiopia’s Feyse Tadese is the fastest in the women’s field.

The 28-year-old won the Seoul and Shanghai marathons in 2012 and then won the 2013 Paris Marathon, but since setting her PB in 2014 she has contested just two marathons.

“I will go with the first group,” said the 2012 world half marathon silver medallist. “And of course it is my aim to win the race.”