Distance running legend Kenenisa Bekele and superstar long distance runner Florence Jebet Kiplagat will compete in the Tata Steel Kolkata 25K on December17.
It will be the first ever race in India for Bekele, a three-time Olympic gold medallist and 18-time World champion. For the first time he will participate in a 25K race.
Bekele’s 25km best is 1:12:47, an intermediate time when he ran in the Berlin Marathon last year and won the race in 2:03:03.
The World record of 1:11:18 for 25K was set by Kenya’s Denis Kimetto in 2012.
Kenyan Kiplagat will head the women's field. She is also a World champion on multiple surfaces, having won at the 2009 IAAF World cross country championships and the 2010 IAAF World half-marathon championship.
She is also a former half-marathon World record holder. The World record in a women’s only race is 1:22:47 achieved by Great Britain’s Paula Radcliffe achieved it in 2005 en-route to her World marathon title in Helsinki.
Kiplagat has a personal best which is faster than the World record. She ran 1:22:17 in the Chicago Marathon, a mixed race, last month.