Who will be the successor of Isaac Viciosa?
The question is: who will be the successor of Isaac Viciosa. The European Champion from 1998 will not run - he didn`t qualify. In the European Top list he is only Number six in Spain the moment. But anyway: the favourite comes also from Spain: Alberto Garcia, who won the European indoor title this year, ran 13:10,90 minutes at the Golden League Meeting in Rome and is number one in Europe, ahead from three runners from France. Garcia became fourth in Edmonton and was the best European at the World Championships 2001 - behind three Africans.
Dieter Baumann
Africans are running in Munich also. Ismail Sghyr and Driss El Himer are originally from Marocco, but they have both the french nationality now, so they are able to win a medal for France, if they are fast enough. In the entry list they are number three and four. An interesting athlete is Tom Compernolle from Belgium. He could fight for a medal and annoy the runners from Spain and France.
Dieter Baumann, the German who runs his first season after he was suspended for two years, who would have also a medal chance, will prefer to run the 10 000 meter.
The fight for gold: Dieter Baumann against Jose Rios
If it would be allowed to bring more than three runners from one country to Munich, France and Spain would be the big nations. Even though every nation can bring only three athletes, it´s absolutely possible they will fight for all medals.
One, who could mix up everything, is Dieter Baumann. The Olympic Champion from 1992 ran in Camaiore in April already 27:38,51 min and he could be a big competitor for the favourite Jose Rios, who reached 27,35:13 minutes. But the 37 years old German must break off his marathon debut in April and didn`t run at the German Championships because of an influenca. It depends how Baumann had handled this dilemma.
Marco Mazza from Italy has also a medal chance. There are only 17 athletes on the entry list, they want to fight for the title and medals. Strange: there are almost no East-Europeans in the race. Dimitry Maksimov is the only one, who comes from the east regions.
Title-defender Stefano Baldini is the fastest runner this year but he won`t run - chance for Zwierzchleewski
Haile Sayatin from Israel will be the eldest runner at this marathon through the city of Munich. He is 47 years old. But he doesn`t have a chance to fight for a medal. This will do other runners. Even though it is difficult to speculate for the favourite positions, there are some tendencies. The Italian Stefano Baldini was the fastest runner in Europe until Munich. He became sixth in London at the 6th April in 2:07,29 minutes. But what surprise - he is not on the entry list. That means he will not run. So the way is free for someone else.
In Budapest 1998 every medal was going to Italy. First was Baldini, second Danilo Goffi, who will run in Munich again, and the bronce medal won Modica, who is not in the entry list. After the three Italian were followed three spanish runner.
We could expect that it`s not easy for the Italians to do that again. Even though Migidio Bourifa is not far behind a medal place, at number six in the list. And the athletes of Spain and Portugal will have a say in that case. Second on the paper is Benoit Zwierzchlewski from France, ahead of Pavel Loskutov from Estonia and Alberto Juzdado from Spain. It depends how the race will be created. Maybe we will have a big surprise.
Ursula Kaiser
