Running: Course record holders Rono and Sobanska confirmed for STWM 2007

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - 06:01 PM

TORONTO, July 24th. Kenya's Daniel Rono, and Poland's Malgorzata Sobanska, the defending champions and course record holders of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, have both confirmed that they will return for this year's edition, scheduled to open the Fall marathon season on September 30th.

The 28 year old Rono went into last year's race as a relatively unknown up-and-comer. He had previously run two marathons—a 2:12:29 victory in Madrid in April '05, followed by another win in Mumbai in January '06 in 2:12:03. He made it 3 for 3 in Toronto, defeating a strong field that included Commonwealth Games gold medalist Samson Ramadhani of Tanzania and veteran Simon Bor. His winning time of 2:10:15 was tantalizingly close to the Canadian All-comers record of 2:09:55—a record that has stood since East Germany's Waldemar Cierpinski won the Olympic Marathon in Montreal 31 years ago with that performance—and just 21 seconds shy of the additional C$20,000 bonus that Scotiabank had put up for a new record.

Rono's strong performance at Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront '06 gained him a place on the Start line at both the Paris Half and Paris Marathon this Spring, where he accredited himself well again, running 62:10 for 8th in the Half in March and a more-impressive 2:10:38 for 3rd at the Marathon on April 15th. The marathon also provided Rono with a whole new level of competition, going up against the likes of Mubarak Shami, Gashaw Melese and Julio Rey; on a warm morning [20°+ Celcius] the pacemakers took the lead pack through halfway in 1:02:50, 14 seconds faster than Paul Tergat's pace during his World record run of 2:04:55 four years ago.

According to Rono, “I am very pleased to come back to Toronto Waterfront. It is a flat, fast course. I hope we get good weather and we can run under 2:09:30.” Scotiabank are once again offering the C$20,000 bonus for a new All-comers record, and this is likely to be the story of the day.



In the women's race, veteran Malgorzata Sobanska hopes to successfully defend her title and course record of 2:34:32 from last year. The 38 year old from Poznan has had an illustrious and prolific marathon career that has encompassed a win at London in 1995 [2:27:43], a 2nd place finish at Boston in 2001 [2:26:42], and a 4th at the 1995 World Championships. She recalls her 2001 Boston as one of the highlights of her fine career, where she led the pack for 14 miles before eventually finishing second to Catherine Ndereba. She also finished 11th at the 2000 Olympics, and has placed in the top four of the Berlin Marathon three times, and the top eight at the Tokyo Women's Marathon four times. At last year's Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon she ran a smart, veterans race and came through in the later stages to pass Kenyan Elizabeth Chemweno for the victory.

This Spring, Sobanska again demonstrated her running experience and savvy, placing 2nd on a hot morning in Prague in 2:35:02.

She can expect a warm welcome back and strong crowd support in Toronto, that boasts a large population of Polish origin, many of whom live in the Roncesvalles neighbourhood on the west end of the course. More than 83,000 Greater Toronto area residents gave Polish as their mother tongue in the 2001 census, making the Poles the 6th largest language group in what the UN has labeled “the world's most multicultural city”.

“I think we'll have our strongest men's and women's fields ever this year,” said Race Director Alan Brookes. “We're just hoping for the good weather that will give the athletes a chance to run fast times. Daniel's 2:10:15 last Fall made us the 6th fastest marathon in North America for 2006. We hope our defending champions can lead us to two new course records this year. A sub 2:10 and a sub 2:30 would be very nice.”

This year's 8th edition of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon is expected to draw close to 3,000 participants, with another 9,000+ runners in the shorter events [Half and 5K], drawn from 30+ countries, every Canadian province and territory and more than 40 American states. The event has doubled in size over the last 3 years.