Defending champ Lakshmanan looks to better mark

KOLKATA: Defending champions Govindan Lakshmanan and Monika Athare go into Sunday’s Tata Steel Kolkata 25k run with different priorities. For Athare this will be another step towards a career in marathon and also a chance to see how her body takes to competing in two road races in a fortnight. Lakshmanan hopes that the presence of Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele will spur him to better the course record of 1:17:16 set last year.

With the $100,000 prize money event going international this year, Bekele fronts a list of elite road runners that has Ugandan Robert Chemonges, who won the Trieste marathon in 2016 and Dusseldorf this year, the 2015 Cape Town marathon winner Michael Mazibuko of South Africa, Eritrean Tsegay Tuemay, winner of the 2017 San Diego halfmarathon, and Kenyan Clement Lagat, who finished first in the 2017 San Blas half-marathon.

Amongthetopwomenhereare Kenyans Helah Kiprop, who won the marathon silver in the 2015 world championship and was seventh this year, and Valentine Kipketer, winner in Amsterdam in 2013 and fifth in Chicago this year. There will be 23 elite Indian runners this time. “Running with Bekele is a big thing for me. You improve when you go up against a good field and so, I am hopeful of improving my timing tomorrow,” said Lakshmaman, 27, who is a double Asian champion having won the 5000 and 10000m gold at the Asian Athletic Championship last July.

That gave him the right to go up against Mo Farah in the world championships last August and now this for an athlete who, not too long ago was running barefoot in Tamil Nadu.