BOSTON MARATHON : Kenyans Ready to Take On the World’s Best Again

The question was a simple one--who is going to win today’s 98th Boston Marathon?--and the answer went straight to the point.

“I don’t know,” said Amby Burfoot, the 1968 winner, “probably somebody from Kenya or a Japanese or a Korean.”

About the only safe bet is that there won’t be an American man wearing the laurel wreath of race champion, despite the protestations of Keith Brantly, 31, from Ormond Beach, Fla., and one of the U.S. hopes.

“We’re doing well,” he said. “We finished second and fifth at New York last year, and we won the World Championships, albeit with a transplanted American, but I’ll take it. We did well at Boston last year. We won L.A. this year. What else do you want?”

It’s a race dominated by foreigners, and today probably won’t change that. Brantly’s transplanted American, Mark Plaatjes, a South African who became a U.S. citizen last year, then won in the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, is not at Boston, piqued because he wasn’t offered enough money to run. A race in Korea offered more, so he headed west, while Korea sent the Olympic gold medal winner, Hwang Young-Jo, 24, to New England.

Hwang will be fighting a Boston legacy--a reigning Olympic champion has never won here--and trying to regain his form in his first marathon, and his first race of any kind outside Korea, since the Barcelona games. That’s because of a bone injury in his left foot that required surgery.

Before the injury, he had run four marathons, with two firsts and a second.

Although this is his first Boston trip, Hwang knows where the focal point of the race will be.

“I cannot say the Kenyans are not in my mind,” he said.

They won’t be difficult to find.

“We are defending,” Ezikiel Bitok said. “That is what’s important.”

They are, although he isn’t. Bitok, 28, is a cross-country specialist running his first marathon. He draws from the leader of the 11-runner Kenyan contingent, Cosmas Ndeti.

Shortly after last year’s race, Ndeti, 24, gave his newly born son, Gideon, the middle name, Boston, which in this case meant “victory.”

Victory is worth $70,000 to the fastest man and woman, and Cosmas Ndeti is back to defend his championship, won in 2 hours 9 minutes 33 seconds when he ran the second half faster than the first.

That second half includes the hills of Newton, which tend to determine the outcome.

He is a hero at home, matching the acclaim of Ibrahim Hessein, who won in 1988, ’91 and ’92. That gives Kenya four championships in the last six races.

Sammy Lelei, 29, and Josphat Ndeti, 23 and the brother of Cosmas, also are among the top Kenyan runners.

It will be interesting to see if they are chasing Lucketz Swartbooi, of Namibia, who set the pace last year in Boston and at the World Championships. Ndeti passed Swartbooi, 28, with less than two miles to run in Boston last year.

“I started too early,” Swartbooi said. “I pushed too hard and I died in the end.”

That race was run in 70-degree weather, an oven for marathon runners. Today’s forecast is for 50 degrees, which has the runners excited.

Two Mexican runners, Andres Espinosa and Arturo Barrios, also figure to challenge, hoping to complete a weekend double for their country. Mexico’s Dionicio Ceron won the London Marathon on Sunday.

Espinosa, 31, won the 1993 New York Marathon, outdueling Dartmouth medical student Bob Kempainen, 27, who finished second and is probably the best U.S. hope in Boston today.

In the women’s competition, Olga Markova, 24, of Russia, will try to win her third in a row. Her toughest competition might come from Kim Jones, 35, of Spokane, Wash., who was second last year; Elana Meyer, 27, a South African Olympic silver medalist at 10,000 meters who is running her first marathon; Uta Pippig, 28, a German who won the 1993 New York marathon, and Valentina Yegorova, 30, from Russia and the Olympic gold medalist in the marathon at Barcelona.

“You hear a lot of stories about Boston,” said Colleen de Reuck, 30, of South Africa. “Even the top people have bad days and don’t do well on that course. It all depends on the day.”