A Kenyan Affair

The Boston Marathon could turn into a Kenyan parade, just as it did in the previous Summer Olympic year in 1996.

Four years ago, when the Kenyans were fighting for berths on their Olympic team, they swept the first five places and seven of the top eight at Boston.

This time, two of the three spots on the team will be decided at Boston, with the other place going to the top performer at today’s London Marathon or Rotterdam Marathon, a decision to be made by the Kenyan federation.

It certainly would not be a shock if a Kenyan wins Monday. Kenyans have won the last nine Boston Marathons, starting with Ibrahim Hussein in 1991.

Hussein also was the first Kenyan winner in 1988, and since then, the Kenyans have dominated road racing, not only in the marathon, but at all the shorter distances.

On Monday, they will have eight of the top 10 fastest entries, including defending champion Joseph Chebet, two-time winner Moses Tanui, two-time New York City Marathon champion Joseph Kagwe and 1998 Chicago Marathon winner Ondoro Osoro.

“Many athletes are looking at me because I won last year,” Chebet said. “There will be three to five Kenyans there at the end--Tanui, Kagwe and maybe a couple of others.”

While there is no clear-cut favorite among the men, the women’s race appears to belong to Fatuma Roba of Ethiopia.

The 1996 Olympic gold medalist has won the past three Boston Marathons, matching a feat accomplished by four other women, and is heavily favored to become the first--man or woman--to win four in a row.

Clarence DeMar won the race seven times between 1911 and 1928, but never four straight, while Bill Rodgers won four titles between 1975-80.

Rodgers likes Roba’s chances.

“She’s been crushing the competition on the hills,” he said. “Fatuma seems to have a particular affinity for the Boston course.”

Joan Benoit Samuelson, the first women’s Olympic marathon gold medalist in 1984 and a two-time Boston champion, also thinks highly of Roba.

“She’s a machine,” Samuelson said. “She’s light and she flies through the course.”

Roba not only has been crushing her rivals on the hills, but at the finish, too. None of her three victories has been close.

In 1997, she beat runner-up Elana Meyer of South Africa by 46 seconds. A year later, she finished 3:56 ahead of Renata Paradowska of Poland, and last year, she was 2:26 in front of Franziska Rochat-Moser of Switzerland.

Meyer and Paradowska are back to challenge Roba, but neither has broken 2 hours, 25 minutes, which the tireless Ethiopian has done each of the past two years (2:23:21 in 1998, 2:23:25 in 1999).

Last year, Roba placed 24th overall, the best finish ever by a woman.

That left her about 13 1/2 minutes behind Chebet, who was timed at 2:09:52, the third-slowest winning performance since 1988 and a pace that did not suit Tanui.

Tanui, the 1996 champion at 2:09:15 and the 1998 winner at 2:07:34, failed to finish, dropping out near the 20-mile mark.

“Last year I thought the pace was too slow,” said Tanui, the runner-up in the Chicago Marathon in October with a career-best 2:06:16 and the fastest in the field of 18,000 for Monday’s race. “I took a lot of water. I had a problem. If I take a lot of water when the pace is slow, it affects my stomach.

“If the pace is fast, it’s good for the race and it’s good for me.”

This time, the pace figures to be fast, if the weather is favorable.

The top 10 in the field have broken 2:09 and five have gone under 2:08.

Tanui has some psychological advantages. In addition to owning the fastest time and the two victories, both in even-numbered years, he is the most experienced over the demanding Boston course. He also has finished 10th in 1994, second in 1995 and fifth in 1997.

At 34, he is the oldest of the top performers, and wants to run the marathon in the Olympics in what might be his final opportunity.

He has competed twice in the games, placing eighth at 10,000 meters in 1988 and 1992. He skipped the ’96 Olympics because the race was too close to the Boston Marathon, but with two months’ extra time to prepare this year, he is hoping for a shot at a gold medal.

Tanui’s two Boston victories were very significant. In 1996, he won the race’s Centennial marathon, stopping the three-race winning streak of Kenya’s Cosmas Ndeti. In 1998, he overtook Chebet with 200 meters remaining and won by three seconds in one of the race’s closest finishes.

Chebet also has a psychological edge. He was ranked No. 1 in the world last year after winning at Boston and New York. He has a glittering marathon record, with four first-place finishes and three seconds in seven races. And he is trained by Dr. Gabriele Rosa, one of the world’s most respected distance coaches.

“I have trained harder than last year,” Chebert said. “I train in altitude of 3,000 meters, where it’s up and down, just like the Boston course. So Boston is no problem for me.”

Kagwe, who has learned to conquer the tricky New York course, still is trying to adjust to the undulating Boston route.

“The hills cause me a lot of problems,” said Kagwe, the fifth-place finisher in each of the past two Boston races and 16th in his marathon debut at Boston in 1994. “My legs don’t respond well going downhill, but they do well uphill.

“Half of Boston is downhill. That throws me a lot.”

The aftereffects of the testing hills have caused many marathoners a lot of pain over the years, and for that reason, some don’t return.

But with so much at stake for the Kenyans this time and the prestige and tradition of the race, most of the elite men are competing.

Roba, meanwhile, will be trying to make history.