RUNNING NEW YORK MARATHON : Fastest Runner Might Be Fastest Talker

The world’s fastest marathon runner has arrived. If you doubt it, just listen for a moment.

“I am the best,” he says. “I can say for sure that I will win.”

Belayneh Densimo of Ethiopia knows he is the best because he set the world record of 2 hours 6 minutes 50 seconds last year at Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Today, he is the favorite in the 20th New York City Marathon. Why? Densimo tells you he is the favorite.

“I don’t want to be naughty,” he says through an interpreter. “But I am pretty sure I can break the course record, whether that means a world record or not. But I really think that for sure I can win the race.”

Densimo, a lieutenant in the Addis Ababa Police Dept., is favored in a men’s field that is perhaps the strongest ever assembled. In addition to the world record-holder, there is Gelindo Bordin of Italy, the Olympic champion; Steve Jones of Wales, the defending champion, and a total of nine entrants who have run faster than 2:10.

“I like to run against champions,” Densimo says, “but I’m really not worried about any of them.”

The field, expected to total 23,000 men and women, will probably have excellent weather, with temperatures at the start predicted to be in the 40s. The race, which begins on Staten Island and winds through all five boroughs, will be televised by ABC at 10:30 a.m., PST.

Not many of the elite runners here have competed against the enigmatic Ethiopian record-holder. By now, however, they all know about the powerful team of Ethiopians, which was split into three groups last spring and won three major marathons on the same weekend.

Even though an entire news conference was devoted to Densimo this week, he did little to illuminate his past. For example, he was asked to clear up a lingering discrepancy regarding the correct spelling of his name.

He told reporters last year in Rotterdam that his surname was spelled Dinsamo. This year, he says it’s Densimo.

There is also the matter of his age, which repeated questioning failed to determine. An interpreter was sure that Densimo was born in June of 1966, which would make him 23. Then he said, no, it was 1965. When pressed, the interpreter shrugged and said: “In Ethiopia, we have a different calendar. In Ethiopia, it is now 1982.”

Some international running publications even list his age as 32.

Densimo’s confidence may seem overpowering to some, but he carries it with such matter-of-factness that it is not offensive. At least, he has the credentials to back it up. Densimo was the first to take the marathon below 2:07, a performance that is either an aberration or one that will prove to be a barrier-breaker for the rest of the world.

That world-record race was not the only fast marathon Densimo has run. He says he has entered 14 marathons and won 12. Again, there is a discrepancy. According to some records, Densimo has been second in at least three races, and perhaps in one other. Nevertheless, while there is reason to question his memory, there is little doubt about his ability.

Aside from the 2:06:50, Densimo has had three other races faster than 2:10, including the world’s fastest time this year, a 2:08:39 at Rotterdam in April.

The women’s race is Ingrid Kristiansen’s to win or lose. The world record-holder at 2:21:06, Kristiansen has stayed away from New York in the past. She has reportedly suggested that Fred Lebow, the race director, has prevented her from running because of the special relationship that Grete Waitz has with this event.

Although Kristiansen is apparently miffed at the previous snubs, neither she nor Lebow would comment.

Waitz is not running because of a stress fracture in her pelvis. The best U.S. marathoner, Joan Benoit Samuelson, is pregnant with her second child and will not be running here, either.

Kristiansen is not predicting another run at a sub-2:20 time. “This is not the course for it,” she says. Although she has run three of the five fastest women’s marathons, Kristiansen says she will be going for the win and not a fast time. “(But) I would like to run under 2:25,” she adds.

Challenging the Norwegian are Laura Fogli of Italy, who has run 2:27:49; Zoya Ivanova of the Soviet Union, whose best time is 2:27:57, and two young Americans--Kim Jones of Spokane, Wash., who has been clocked in 2:29:34, and Margaret Groos of Tallahassee, Fla., who has a 2:29:50 to her credit. Jones, winner of the Twin Cities Marathon four weeks ago, explains that she is running another marathon so soon because she wants “to explore the unknown.”

Groos, who won the 1988 Olympic Trials marathon, was disappointed with her 39th place in the Seoul Olympics.

Chasing them all will be Priscilla Welch, the marvel from Great Britain who is about to turn 45. Her age, Welch says, “is of no consequence to me but seems to be quite interesting to the media.”

Marathon Notes

Gidamis Shahanga of Tanzania would have been one of the prerace favorites if he had shown up. Shahanga, who was fourth here last year, did not make it to the airport in Dar es Salaam with the rest of the Tanzanian delegation. He lives in the northern part of the country, and according to the head of the delegation, the roads are often impassable. When Shahanga failed to appear at the airport, officials assumed that he was unable to get through. However, a Tanzanian official said Shahanga may still make it to the starting line. “There are other roads and other planes,” he said.

Zoya Ivanova of the Soviet Union and Art Boileau of Canada have a chance to become rich if they win today’s race. Both won this year’s Los Angeles Marathon. Both stand to earn a $300,000 bonus given to any runner who wins both races in the same year. . . . Gelindo Bordin takes no chances when he travels. He brought his own Parmesan cheese, olive oil, pasta and cooking pots with him to prepare his twice-daily pasta meals.