Kenyans aim to regain Vienna crown

While the music will be soft and flattering once the runners get on their way the battle for victory could be thrilling and fierce. There will be no major favourite. The Kenyan trio of Justus Kangogo, Douglas Chebii and Stanley Kurgat head the men’s elite field on 6th April. They feature personal best times in the region of 2:06 to 2:07 and another two athletes on the current start list have run below 2:09. Organisers of Austria’s major road race event today announced the men’s main contenders.

A record number of close to 13,000 entries was registered for the 42nd edition of the Vienna City Marathon which is a World Athletics Elite Label Race. Running events at shorter distances included, the total number of athletes will be well over 45,000.

It looks likely that Kenya’s elite male runners could be successful in regaining the Vienna City Marathon crown which they lost to Chala Regasa of Ethiopia last year. Before there were four Kenyan victories in a row in the men’s race, culminating in Samwel Mailu smashing the course record with 2:05:08 in 2023.

The fast trio of Kenyans have all shown strong performances or even run personal bests in recent marathons. Justus Kangogo clocked 2:06:45 for fourth place in Amsterdam last October. It was a year earlier when the 29 year-old smashed his personal record with a 2:05:57 performance in Berlin. Douglas Chebii has shown fine consistency during the past three years. It was in 2022 when the 31 year-old clocked his PB of 2:06:31 in Linz, Austria. He followed this up with a fine 2:07:11 in Sevilla in 2023 and then placed 7th in the competitive Dubai Marathon in 2024 with 2:08:15. Chebii was the fastest Kenyan in Dubai in that year. 25 year-old Stanley Kurgat is the youngest of the fast Kenyan trio and his PB has come just half a year ago. Running only his second marathon after a 2:11:50 debut in Valencia in 2023 he improved significantly to 2:07:05 in Berlin. While this was only good enough for 15th place in this competitive race he could be challenging for his biggest career win in Vienna. He has the advantage of knowing most of the course since he ran here as a pacemaker until the 30k point last year.

Fellow Kenyans Charles Ndiema and Benard Kimeli are the other two runners who are on the start list with personal bests of sub 2:09. Ndiema was fourth in Vienna in 2022 with 2:08:12 and Kimeli ran 2:08:34 in Tokyo last year. Bernard Muia is an athlete who could produce a surprise at the Vienna City Marathon. The Kenyan was runner-up here a year ago with 2:10:42. He moved from fourth to second place in the final two kilometres of the race, making up a deficit of 48 seconds. Bernard Muia ran his PB of 2:09:17 when he won the Munich Marathon in 2023.

Austrian record holder Peter Herzog, who ran 2:10:06 in the 2020 London Marathon, leads the national elite field. He will aim for a time of around 2:12. Former Austrian record holder Lemawork Ketema (2:10:44) hopes for a solid comeback race after a longer break due to an injury.