By Jesse Squire, The Final Sprint

Men’s Marathon
The Schedule: Sunday, Aug 24 (live on NBC, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. EDT)

The Americans: Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, Brian Sell

The Contenders: Sammy Wanjiru (KEN), Martin Lel (KEN), Robert Cheruyiot (KEN), Mubarak Shami (QAT), Abderrahim Goumri (MAR), Jaouad Gharib (MAR), Tsegaye Kebede (ETH), Tsuyoshi Ogata (JPN)

The Medal Picks: T&FN – Wanjiru, Lel, Goumri; SI – Lel, Goumri, Kebede

The Story: If you look at the World Marathon Majors leader board, you would expect the race to come down to Lel, Cheruyiot and Goumri, or new half-marathon World Record holder Wanjiru. But that’s predicting the future based solely on what has happened in the past, and that’s an iffy proposition for the marathon.

First off, athletes compete so rarely that we just don’t have enough information to tell who will be at their best and who will not. This is even more true in Olympic marathons, where athletes may have spent their whole lives preparing for this one single race in preference over all others. So you are interested in an athlete who is ascendant rather than dominant…someone like, say, Ryan Hall. Or someone else we’re much less aware of.

Tsegaye Kebede answers that call. He won his first marathon, in course record time in Addis Ababa (2:15), then ran 2:08 and 2:06, plus a sub-60:00 half and a couple of 10k road wins, all in the last 13 months.

But the other confounding factor in this race will be the heat and humidity. The always-well-peaked Japanese are no strangers to these conditions. The U.S. runners have their own not-so-secret weapon they used to great advantage in Athens.

Predictions? I’m not making any – it’s just too close to call and will be one heck of a race. Just sit back, watch, and enjoy it.

Note: Athletes’ rankings refer to TheFinalSprint.com’s World Points Standings, and medal picks come to us from Track & Field News and Sports Illustrated, respectively.