Windy city showdown

From Cornafean to Chicago. Catherina McKiernan blew into town this week, quietly installed among the favourites in her first US marathon. Along with Joyce Chep chumba of Kenya, McKiernan is the marquee name in the women's race, which begins at 7.30 a.m. local time (1.30 p.m. Irish) tomorrow. All week local scribes have been keen to draw some parallel between the backgrounds of the women. Chepchumba has had a harder life in Kenya, but the running is the same anywhere.

"It's a bit alike, all right, even if I didn't have to run six miles to school," McKiernan commented, mentioning her treks to school from the family farm in Cavan in comparison with Chepchumba's lot, reared in a family of eight on a corn and cattle farm. "When you don't know any better, you pass no remarks," McKiernan said. "It was a very, very healthy lifestyle, very basic. We grew all our own food, had hens for eggs, had all the milk we needed. When we had to go somewhere, I wasn't put into a car and brought there. We had to run or cycle or walk. It gave me a great base as a runner and for life in general."

Tomorrow's race brings her back into competition with Chepchumba, who she beat in London last year. Chepchumba won the Great North Run a couple of weeks back; McKiernan's preparations have been less happy. Chicago will be her first marathon of the 1999 season, as her plans were stymied by an Achilles' tendon injury in March which forced her to withdraw from the London marathon, claimed subsequently by Chepchumba in two hours 23 minutes 22 seconds. McKiernan is keen to play down any lingering affects from an injury which is usually slow to heal. "It all depends on how I feel on the (race) day now. I feel fine though."

McKiernan's preparation has consisted of six road races this year. Her September 19th half marathon in Amsterdam was the most recent outing and a less than happy one: she came home seventh in a modest 1:14:01, nearly five minutes behind the winner. The McKiernan camp has been keen to play down the significance of that result, noting that Catherina had been in full marathon training before that and wasn't expecting to be fully sharp. This weekend could provide a significant earnings boost for McKiernan. She would earn $65,000, plus an appearance fee of some $35,000, by winning. A time of 2:25 would earn a $15,000 performance bonus.

Her main rival for the latter part of the purse will, of course, be Chepchumba, the Germany-based Kenyan who, while McKiernan was working for Cavan Co Council, was working for the post office through the early 1990s. Chepchumba's career has been marked by an incredible consistency since she made her marathon debut in New York in 1995, finishing fourth in 2:33:51. She has finished in the top three in her six subsequent marathon appearances, and it was in winning here in Chicago last year that she made the breakthrough in terms of fast times, with a late surge to finish in 2:23:57. She then ran some

35 seconds faster than that in London this spring. Only two active runners have run faster: Naoko Takahashi of Japan and McKiernan. "I am sure," said Chepchumba this week, "that Catherina and I will be running together in the lead at the end this Sunday."

Chepchumba, though, comes to the race with the better form. She has run five half marathons in the last two months, winning four of them. She will be among those looking for a near record time tomorrow. The flat Chicago course is conducive to fast times. It runs in a long, thin loop north from the downtown area parallel to Lake Michigan along the city's north shore suburbs, before hitting the downtown area again and snaking through the city streets to the finish in Grant Park. The flatness of the course and the use of rabbits for pacing throughout virtually guarantees fast times today for the elite runners in the field of 25,000. With prize money of more than $400,000 being divided, with $65,000 to both the men's and women's winner, the race is an attractive prospect.

Last year's men's race was won by Chepchumba's compatriot, the remarkable Ondoro Osoro, in his first and, until tomorrow, only marathon. Osoro's time of 2:06:54 was the fastest recorded in a debut marathon, and he is reticent this week about discussing his prospects of repeating either the time or the placing.

His win last year was made all the more extraordinary by his personal history. In 1995 he was severely injured in a head-on traffic accident, and was taken to hospital unconscious. The catalogue of injuries included a broken arm, hip and ribs.

Osoro's recovery took two years and the injuries still plague him. He had intended to compete in the Boston Marathon in the spring, but problems with his back and hip kept him out.

For treatment, he travelled to Ireland to work with Sonia O'Sullivan's physiotherapist Gerard Hartmann, who treated him through the spring.

The Chicago Marathon has a history of novel winners thrown up by race director Carey Pinkowski's habit of inviting good runners from other distances to compete in their first marathon. Osoro was one such, and the 1997 winner, Khalid Khannouchi of Morocco, was another.

Among this year's favourites is Hendrik Ramaala of South Africa, another Pinkowski choice, who beat Paul Tergat of Kenya in the world half marathon championships three weeks ago.