PREVIEW: European Cup 10000m brings the continent's top runners to Marseille
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| Defending champion Chema Martinez of Spain will face a stiff challenge from Briton Mo Farah at the 14th European Cup 10000m in Marseille on Saturday. |
A total of 51 men and 39 women have entered and will be seeded into two separate races. The top three men and women will also qualify directly for the European Athletics Championships.
In addition to the individual honours, there are also the team gold medals at stake with Portugal being the defending men's and women's champions having taken both titles on home soil in Ribeira Brava, on the island of Madeira, 12 months ago.
In the men's event, a lot of attention is focussed on Great Britain's Mo Farah who broke the British 10km record on the roads with a time of 27:44 on Monday, the second fastest time ever by a European runner on a certified course.
Farah, the 2006 European Athletics Championships 5000m silver medallist and a former SPAR European Cross Country Championships winner, will be having just his second outing over 25 laps of the track after having run 27:44.54 in his debut at the distance two years ago.
Another strong contender in the men's race will be Spain's Chema Martinez, the 2002 European Athletics Championships 10000m gold medallist who also got the silver medal over the same distance four years ago.
Martinez won the Cup 10000m last year in 27:57.61 beating Portugal's Rui Pedro Silva by four seconds and the latter will also be competing in Marseille.
The Spaniard has said that at this year's European Athletics Championships, he will concentrate on the Marathon but a good run may lead him to consider doing the double, like he did in Göteborg, although he was to drop out of the Marathon after his medal winning performance on the track.
The man who beat Martinez in Göteborg, Germany's 2006 European champion Jan Fitschen, will also be on the start line in Marseille and is slowly getting back to his best after injury problems in 2009 meant he did not race the whole of last year.
"I ran a 3000m a week ago in Rehlingen and was reasonably pleased with 8:08 after having not run on the track for almost two years. I'm not setting my sights too high on Saturday, I just want to qualify for the European Athletics Championships," commented Fitschen.
Another man to look out is Italy's Danielle Meucci while his compatriot Cosimo Caliandro, the 2001 European Athletics Junior Championships 1500m champion and 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships 3000m gold medallist, will be having only his second race at the distance having won the Italian title last month.
The 2006 Cup winner Mokhtar Benhari is also part of a strong French team which is bidding to regain the team title they last won four years ago.
The women's race looks equally enthralling and open.
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| The 2009 SPAR European Cross Country champion Hayley Yelling will spearhead Great Britain's challenge in Marseille. |
Germany has the double London Marathon winner Irina Mikitenko, three times a runner up in the Cup, and her compatriot Sabrina Mockenhaupt, who won the Cup 10000m in 2005.
Portugal will try to defend their team title and have Sara Moreira, 2009 European Athletics Indoor Championships 3000m silver medallist; Ines Monteiro, the 2009 European Cup 10000m winner, as well as the evergreen 1996 Olympic Games 10000m champion Fernanda Ribiero, in their squad.
Christelle Daunay, who improved her French Marathon record to 2:24.22 at the Paris Marathon in April, is in excellent shape as well.
Belarus' 2007 European Athletics Under 23 Championships 10000m gold medallist Volha Minina is also looking to make a breakthrough in the senior ranks and get under 32 minutes for the first time.
One curious statistic is that the team titles in both the men's and women's races have gone to four different countries for each of the last four years so it is difficult to predict who will emerge triumphant in these contest on Saturday.
