Nairobi — World marathon champion Lucas Kibet tops the list of 16 runners selected by Athletic Kenya to represent the country in this season's Standard Chartered The Greatest Race on Earth series.

Kibet, surprise winner at this year's World Championship in Osaka, has been selected in the Kenya Two team and will run in the Singapore Marathon on December 2.

Another big name, Edith Masai, who quit the track and country this year to concentrate on the road, has been picked in the Kenya One team and will also run the Singapore Marathon.

The Greatest Race on Earth Series is a four-legged marathon competition run in the cities of Nairobi, Singapore, Mumbai and Hong Kong.

The Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon starts off the series on October 28.

The series is open to national teams of four runners each, with each of the team member running in one of the four marathons.

Best time

The times of the runners per team are accumulated, with the fastest teams sharing out in the prize money of over $1 million (Sh67 million).

Standard Chartered has sponsored Kenya One composed of a male and female team while Athletic Kenya have sponsored Kenya Two.

David Rutto, with a best time of 2 hours 16 minutes, will run in Nairobi for Kenya One in the men's competition while Jackline Nyangeri, winner of the national 35km selection trial, will begin the challenge for the women.

Kenya Two has Benson Ogato (best time 2 hrs 12 min) and Anna Miteo (best time 2hrs 12min) running in the Nairobi Marathon.

"The teams are very good. The athletes are training very well especially those running the Nairobi Marathon," AK public relations officer and coach Peter Angwenyi said.

Preparations

Angwenyi said that this year's elite section of the marathon would be more competitive following a change in one of the rules of competition.

"In the previous editions, clubs were entered in the series but this time round teams are entering as countries, meaning stronger runners," he said.

In a related development, preparations for the marathon are near complete with just nine days to go.

Standard Chartered Bank corporate affairs manager Ann Njambi said entries had bulged following an extension of the registration deadline to Monday. "However, we will not accept any more registration after that," Njambi said.

Categories on offer are the 42 km, 21km, 10km and 3km family fan run.