Former World champion, Mare Dibaba will battle Agnes Keino at the 36th edition of the Generali Munich Marathon that will be held on October 9, 2022 in Munich.
The 32-year-old won the world title in Beijing in 2015 and a year later took a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics.
Dibaba who also won the Chicago Marathon in 2014 and has been second twice in Boston, in 2014 and 2015 comes to this race with a personal best of 2:19:52 that she got at the 2012 Dubai Marathon where she took the bronze medal.
The 2015 All-Africa Games half marathon champion, delivered another impressive performance to finish runner-up in the Berlin Marathon in 2019 with a time of 2:20.21. She has run just one marathon during the Covid Pandemic, finishing 14th in Boston.
Dibaba will battle for honors with her compatriot Aberu Mekuria, who has won her last three marathons and she also comes to this race with a personal best time of 2:24.30 that she got in 2019 at Osaka Marathon where she took the honors, in the same year as well as triumphing in Riga in Latvia this spring.
Dibaba and Mekuria will have to get past Kenya’s Agnes Keino who seems to be the underdog among the two Ethiopians but she seems to be in the best shape at the moment as she comes to this race with a personal and season best of 2:25.08 that she got early this year at the Copenhagen Marathon where she finished in third.
“My training has been good. The body is responding well and am in great shape at the moment. I know Dibaba and Mekuria are in good shape too but lets wait and see the results on the racing day,” said Keino.
For the first time in over 20 years the organisers have allowed the elite athletes to come and participate as they chase to lower the race course record of 2:32.11 that was set in 2012 by Germans Susanne Hahn.
“Of course we hope that the course record will be broken when the winner cross the finish line in the Olympic Stadium on October 9,” said the Race Director Gernot Weigl. “It’s the right time to position the race more on the international scene. We’d become aware of interest abroad in the GENERALI MUNICH MARATHON and decided to join the Label Series of World Athletics for road races. For that reason alone we now have an international elite field and are hoping for fast races. With the help of top times we want to develop the marathon further and show that you can run fast in Munich.”
