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Ethiopia: Thrilling Battle in Venta De Ba-Os
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The Reporter (Addis Ababa)
22 December 2007
Posted to the web 24 December 2007
Addis Ababa
The "28th Cross Internacional de Venta de Ba-os" (Spain) will take place this Sunday (16 December). For the occasion race organizers have brought together a quality field which includes no less than three top-ten men from last March's World Cross Country Championships held in Mombasa while newly minted European XC champion Spain's Marta Domínguez is the star name of the women's division.
Men - Ethiopians to take Mombasa revenge
The most illustrious contender is the the reigning World Cross Country bronze medalist Bernard Kiprop Kipyego. The Kenyan ace is due to make his 2007/2008 season cross country debut in Venta de Ba-os as he has only raced once on the road after his last track appearance, when he set an impressive 10,000m PB of 26:59.61 for fourth in Brussels last 14 September.
A former (2005) World Junior Cross Country silver medallist the 21-year-old Kipyego will have fellow Kenyan Michael Kipyego for company. An accomplished 3000m steeplechaser, Kipyego took a respectable 6th on the home soil of Mombasa and holds a 8:10.66 PB at his specialist event where he also clinched the World Junior crown back in 2002. Kipyego missed the Osaka Worlds as he had to settle for fifth at the Kenyan trials in Nairobi.
But the Ethiopian contingent will also be of high caliber as it comprises other top-ten finishers from Mombasa in the guise of 20-year-old Tadesse Tola and Eshetu Wondimu. Tola capped his summer season with the African Championships 10,000m silver medal in Alger one month prior to the Worlds in Osaka where he came 13th.
As for Wondimu, he is a successful road performer having set a fine Half Marathon PB of 1h00:08 last April in Berlin. More recently he ran superbly at the Seven Hills Run over 15km in the eastern Dutch city of Nijmegen where he placed runner-up in 42.36 only bettered by fellow Ethiopian Sileshi Sihine but well ahead of Sunday's rival Bernard Kipyego, a distant third 1:06 adrift Wondimu on that occasion.
Women - Domínguez vs Kalovics showdown
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The women's event will be contested over 6375m and the athlete to beat should be local heroine Marta Domínguez. The 32-year-old is a Venta de Ba-os native and will obviously have the stongest support from the local crowd especially after her feat in Toro. Domínguez, who led the Sapniah women's squad to its first ever team victory at the Europeans, faces the stiff opposition of Hungary's Aniko Kalovics and Portugal's Monica Rosa, who came 5th and 14th respectively in Toro.
Other entrants include Portugal's Ines Monteiro (29th in Toro) Morocco's Bouchra Chaabi plus three other Spaniards who snatched team gold last Sunday in the guise of Iris Fuentes-Pila (12th individually), Alessandra Aguilar (17th) and Sonia Bejarano (21th).
Weather forecasters predict a very cold and partially cloudy day with a high temperature of 5ºC, a low likelihood of rain and no wind.
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