Pippig, Ndeti Already Hold Quite an Edge

She’s the best female marathon runner in the world.

He’s a one-trick pony, or maybe a horse for a course, but it’s a great trick and the right course.

Uta Pippig and Cosmas Ndeti have led more races in Massachusetts than Ted Kennedy. If form holds, they will be side by side after the Boston Marathon today, both in laurel wreaths that have become like a favorite old hat, and both much richer. First prize is worth $100,000 for each, and with bonuses and other contractual quirks, that may go up as much as five-fold, particularly for Ndeti.

Both will be standing on a podium in Copley Square that has been their stage for the final act of a long-running performance.

The centennial Boston Marathon would be like the 99th and the 98th--and, for Ndeti, the 97th--with a field expanded to 38,500 running for second place.

One day a year, they own the city and the sport. They are alike in their success, but very different in the way they have attained it.

Pippig is a product of German engineering, but she became the best only when she escaped the engineers to train the way she wanted to train, to go where she wanted to go.

That brought her from East Germany to Boulder, Colo., to run, and eventually to Boston, a city and race she has grown to love, expressing that affection with blown kisses while crossing the finish line.

More affection, even, than for the Olympic Games that were the focus of East Germany’s attention.

“Many people say the Olympics are great, but things change,” she said. “Things get older, now things are getting more conservative.

“This race is more important to me, with the Olympics just a little less.”

She has talked of skipping the Olympic marathon, instead running the 10,000 meters in Atlanta, but Friday she indicated that what happens here will dictate what she does there.

“If I win [today], then I think I will run the marathon in the Olympics,” she said. “If I don’t, maybe I will run the 10,000 meters.”

Ndeti, of Kenya, expresses no doubts about today or his future.

No one has won the Boston Marathon four times in a row, but he figures that will change.

“This year, they should not tell me ‘good luck,’ ” he said. “They should tell me ‘congratulations’ because I will win.”

That would put him on Kenya’s Olympic team and bring up another quirk in his running career.

He wins in Boston, but nowhere else.

Not in Stuttgart, where he broke down after 23 kilometers of the 42-kilometer world championships in 1993. Not in Chicago, where he dropped out at 22 miles in 1994. Not in Japan, where he ran a pedestrian 2:15 to finish 24th in December.

God wills him to win in Boston, he said. Apparently, God has other plans for him outside Massachusetts.

“I will do things different this year,” he said. “Usually, I go home and rest for three months before training for another race. Now I will go back to training, and if God lets me, I will win in Atlanta.”

But Atlanta is not Boston. The course is not downhill and the Olympics may not be his race.

Boston is, as it is Pippig’s. Today, they could be the king and queen of the city, reigning yet another year.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Runners to Watch

MEN

* 1. Cosmas Ndeti, Kenya: Quiet before winning the last three Boston Marathons, he is brash this year, claiming he is “ready.” In Boston, he’s always ready.

* 2. Sammy Lelei, Kenya: He had a breakthrough in Berlin, running 2:07:02, the second-best marathon time ever.

* 3. Luiz Antonio dos Santos, Brazil: Ranked third in the world after finishing third in Boston and in the world championships, he won at Fukuoka in December in 2:09:30.

* 4. Andres Espinosa, Mexico: Four seconds behind Ndeti in 1994 (2:07:19), he won in New York in 1993 and is always strong here.

* 5. Moses Tanui, Kenya: Second to Ndeti last year and holder of the world half-marathon record (59:47).

WOMEN

* 1. Uta Pippig, Germany: Two-time winner in Boston, winner in Berlin, winner everywhere.

* 2. Tegla Loroupe, Kenya: Two-time winner in New York, tangled with Elena Meyer at a water station here last year and drifted back to ninth, but someday likely to assume Pippig’s crown as the best in the world.

* 3. Madina Biktagirova, Belarus: Third here last year and the 1992 Los Angeles Marathon winner.

* 4. Kim Jones, Spokane, Wash.: What, an American? She broke down in the Olympic trials but is in form now and has finished third three times in Boston.

* 5. Franziska Rochat-Moser, Switzerland: Fourth in Boston last year and has a 2:27:44 personal best.