Athletics: Radcliffe Will Face Track Rival Adere in London

Paula Radcliffe will resume her rivalry with Berhane Adere, the Ethiopian who has denied her honors many times on the track, in this year’s Flora London Marathon.

Adere’s was one of several names announced yesterday by the organizers for this year’s race on April 23. Others include Margaret Okayo, Kenya’s 2004 London winner, and Deena Kastor, the American who claimed a surprise Olympic bronze medal in Athens in a race Radcliffe famously failed to finish.

Kenya’s Susan Chepkemei, whom Radcliffe narrowly beat in the New York City Marathon in 2004 on her return to action after the Olympics, the Romanian Constantina Dita and Russia’s Ludmila Petrova will also feature. But it is the inclusion of Adere which is the most intriguing on her debut over the 26.2-mile distance.

The 32-year-old Adere has been one of the most consistent runners in the world on the track and has often finished ahead of Radcliffe in major races. She finished second of the three Ethiopians who sprinted past the English woman on the last lap of the 2001 world championships 10,000 meters in Edmonton, triggering a trackside argument between Radcliffe and her husband Gary Lough. She also finished ahead of Radcliffe in the 10,000m in the Helsinki world championships last year, once again winning silver.

The women’s race will be run in mixed conditions with male pacemakers to help the competitors to fast times, the same controversial format used in 2003 when Radcliffe set the current world record of 2hr 15min 25sec.

Another Ethiopian, the world 5,000m and 10,000m champion Tirunesh Dibaba, will be the star attraction of the VisitScotland Great Edinburgh cross-country event on Saturday. She will be defending the title she won last year when she beat Australia’s Benita Johnson. Her compatriot Kenenisa Bekele, the Olympic and world 10,000m champion, earlier accepted an invitation to run at the meeting; he should have run last year but withdrew after the death of his fiancé in early January.

Dibaba returns to the Scottish capital as odds-on favorite. There appears to be nothing to stop her scoring a second successive win, although her rivals in the 6km race will include Kenya’s Isabella Ochichi, Ireland’s 2000 Olympic 5,000m runner-up Sonia O’Sullivan and Exeter’s Jo Pavey.