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The New York City Marathon is shaping up to be a race for the champions – literally.
Three former champions and even Olympic speed skating gold medalist Apollo Anton Ohno are among the competitors for the event on Nov. 6. Defending winners Gebre Gebremariam of Ethiopia and Edna Kiplagat of Kenya and 2009 winner Meb Keflezighi of the U.S. have once again committed to run the 26.2-mile race.
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This year, a record 140,000 runners applied for the marathon, though about 45,000 receive spots through a lottery system, the event organizers said in a press release. Lottery winners were announced today.
Keflezighi, the first American to win the race since 1982, will run for the seventh time. He also hopes to run the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials race in January. In New York, he’ll compete against Gebremariam, who won last year’s race in 2 hours, 8 minutes, 14 seconds.
This will be Ohno’s first marathon. The 28-year-old has previously won two gold, two silver and four bronze medals in Olympic games (not to mention his victorious triumph on Dancing with the Stars in 2007).
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“Running a marathon is something that I’ve never done, and I am super excited to take on this incredible challenge,” Ohno said.
The marathon takes runners through all five boroughs of the city, starting on Staten Island and ending in Central Park. NewsFeed is already exhausted thinking about it.