End of the road: Sammy Wanjiru wins last
year's London Marathon but this year he is still at his training base in
Kenya wondering how he will get to London
Photo: ACTION IMAGES
One athlete, Ethiopian Tsegaye Kebede, who was runner-up in last year’s race, is booked on a nightmarish trip that begins in Addis Ababa on Tuesday and then takes him by air to Tel Aviv, followed by another flight to Madrid and then a gruelling overland trip to London, via Paris.
Kebede has had the added problem of having to obtain new visas for his re-routed journey. He will deserve a medal just for making it to the capital.
As other runners contemplate trips every bit as difficult, race organisers were on Monday drawing up emergency travel arrangements to smooth their passage to London and ensure a top-quality field for the world’s richest marathon.
Among the options being considered was chartering a jet to pick up athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia, who form the bedrock of the men’s elite field. Money would be appear to be no object to save a race that has been billed as the strongest men’s marathon in history.
But if the flight ban continues, even a charter flight from east Africa would still involve flying the athletes to Madrid and then transporting them overland by bus or train to London, with the prospect of just a couple of days’ rest before the big race.
Among those waiting for transportation from Kenya are Sammy Wanjiru, the Olympic gold medallist who set a course record to win last year’s London race, world champion Abel Kirui and Duncan Kibet, the new big name of marathon running who ran the third fastest time in history in Rotterdam a year ago.
Yesterday, Wanjiru and Kibet were still at their high-altitude training base at Eldoret in Kenya’s Rift Valley awaiting further instructions while Kirui was in Nairobi.
Race organisers will be desperate to avoid any hitch in their travel plans. Without the trio, Sunday’s race would be severely depleted.
On the women’s side, Mara Yamauchi, the Japan-based Briton who made a major breakthrough to finish second in last year’s race, has also been caught up in the travel meltdown. She flew into Madrid with her husband from Japan at the weekend and on Monday night the pair were in a hire car halfway between the Spanish capital and Paris with a reservation on Tuesday for the Eurostar to London.
At least she had the foresight to travel early to give herself plenty of recovery time.
A spokesman for the runner said: “Mara is actually in very good spirits and not at all stressed about the journey. She thinks it is no bad thing to take the weight off her feet for a while.”
Irina Mikitenko, Yamauchi’s conqueror last year and winner of two consecutive London Marathons, faces a relatively straightforward overland journey to the capital by train from her home in central Germany.
But the same cannot be said for Deena Kastor, the American 2004 Olympic bronze medallist, who remains stranded in California and examining flight options to Europe.
Five Japanese runners, three of them women, also remain in Japan and are waiting to hear about travel arrangements.
Meanwhile, the elite wheelchair races were looking susceptible to last-minute withdrawals since a number of athletes taking part in Sunday's Boston Marathon were due to fly directly to London from the United States.
With 3,449 overseas athletes entered for the mass participation race, the flight chaos could also have an impact on the number of fun runners who make it to the start-line, with possible knock-on consequences for the amount of money raised by charity.
On Monday night organisers were confident that the alternative travel plans being put in place would ensure that the cream of the world’s marathon runners would still be able to compete. But should the worst-case scenario happen and the race be stripped of its overseas stars, there will still be domestic interest.
Andrew Lemoncello, the United States-based Scot who will be making his marathon debut in London, beat the flight ban by two days when he flew in from his training base last week. He will be joined by Dan Robinson, who finished 11th in the 2007 World Championships in Osaka and whose journey to London involves a 90-mile drive from Stroud.
If it keeps pumping out its noxious gas cloud, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano could even deliver Britain’s first men’s winner since Eamonn Martin in 1993. Now that would be an act of God.