Reigning Olympic bronze medalist Tsegaye Kebede, and former Chicago and London Marathon champion Felix Limo lead the list of international entrants for the 62nd Fukuoka Marathon on Sunday, December 7. Reigning Fukuoka champion and course record holder, and Olympic marathon gold medalist, Samuel Wanjiru, is not expected to compete.

The 21 year-old Ethiopian Kebede (he only weighs 50 kg/110 lbs), passed his teammate Deriba Merga in the final kilometer of the Olympic Marathon to get the bronze medal in 2:10:00. His other big accomplishment this year was that he won the Paris International Marathon last April in a personal best 2:06:40, just seven seconds short of Michael Rotich’s course record. This will be his first run at Fukuoka.

Limo, 28, is looking to get his marathon career back on track. He finished a disappointing eighth at London last April in 2:10:34 and was never a factor in the race. Last July he had a sub-par outing at the NYC Half-Marathon presented by NIKE finishing 15th in 1:05:22, citing back trouble. He registered two middling marks in his fall road races: a 29:53 10-K in Scicli on Sept. 28 and a 1:03:11 half-marathon in Newcastle on Oct. 5. Limo won the Flora London Marathon in 2006 in 2:06:39, and was also third there in 2007. He won Chicago in 2005 and set his 2:06:14 personal best when he won Rotterdam in 2004.

Elite athlete coordinator Wataru Ogushi has also invited Spain’s José Manuel Martínez (2:08:09 PB), Russia’s Aleksey Sokolov (2:09:07 NR), Canada’s Jon Brown (2:09:31 PB) and Ukraine’s Yuriy Hychun (2:10:59 PB).

The top Japanese entrants include 2005 IAAF World Championships marathon bronze medalist and the last Japanese to win Fukuoka, Tsuyoshi Ogata (2:08:37 PB); the man who was twice fifth at the IAAF World World Championships marathon, Shigeru Aburaya (2:07:52); Arata Fujiwara (2:08:40); Yuko Matsumiya (2:09:18); Satoshi Irifune (2:09:40); Tomoyuki Sato (2:09:43); and Seiji Kobayashi (2:11:02). There will also be hundreds of other Japanese men from all the major corporate running teams. The event serves as a selection race for the Japanese team for next summer’s IAAF World Championships.

The pacemaking chores will be handled by Noritaka Fujiyama of Japan, Samson Ramadhani of Tanzania, and Jonathan Maiyo and John Kales of Kenya. As always, their goal will be to help the winner break the fastest time ever on the course: 2:06:39.

Fukuoka’s champions include some of the best marathon runners of all time, including Haile Gebreselasie (2006), Gezahenge Abera (1999, 2001 and ‘02), Toshihiko Seko (1978, ‘79, ‘80), Rob deCastella (1981), Frank Shorter (1971, ‘72, ‘73 and ‘74), and Jerome Drayton (1969, ‘75 and ‘76). A complete race history is available at this link: ARRS.net.

- By David Monti with Ken Nakamura | RaceResultsWeekly.com