Ethiopian Seifu Tura leads this year’s Bank of America Chicago Marathon field, joined by some of the world’s best athletes who will be vying to dethrone them at the World Athletics Elite Platinum Label road race on 9 October.
In the men’s competition, the 2021 Chicago marathon winner who clocked 2:06:12 Seifu will clash with his compatriots Herpasa Negasa, Dawit Wolde and Asrar Abderehman, plus Uganda’s Stephen Kissa and Kenya’s Benson Kipruto.
Negasa had a breakthrough in 2019 when he shaved almost six minutes from his PB in Dubai to run 2:03:40. He heads to Chicago after a second place performance in Seoul, clocking 2:04:49.
Wolde boasts a marathon personal best of 2:04:27, set in 2021 to finish third in Rotterdam, while Abderehman made headlines in February when he broke the course record at the Zurich Seville Marathon, taking three minutes off his PB to run 2:04:43.
Kissa, a Tokyo Olympian in the 10,000m, brings years of track speed to the road, running 2:04:48 for his debut marathon in Hamburg in April. Kipruto’s 2:05:13 personal best may not be the fastest in the field, but he has performed well at the marathon distance, winning the Boston and Prague Marathons in 2021 and finishing third in Boston this April. He also finished seventh in London in 2020 and won the Toronto Marathon in 2018.