Romanian runner seeks another prize after taking Beijing gold

CHICAGO – As she entered the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing, Constantina Tomescu-Dita glanced back. Then, it hit her. The Olympic gold medal was about to be hers, and when she reached the stand, she could hardly contain her emotions. “I can’t believe I have the gold medal in my hands," Tomescu-Dita said. “I was at the podium and I wanted to start crying." Just seven weeks after becoming the oldest Olympic champion, the 38-year-old Romanian will try to capture her second Chicago Marathon on Sunday. On the men’s side, Daniel Njenga of Kenya will attempt to break through after three second and third-place finishes. And race organizers will simply hope for a relatively uneventful day after wild scenes the past two years. In 2006, men’s champion Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya spent two nights in a hospital with a concussion after he slipped as he crossed the finish line on a rainy day. Last year, with sweltering humidity and temperatures soaring, the race was stopped after about four hours. Organizers were accused of not supplying enough water, and about 50 people were hospitalized. A 35-year-old man died, although coroners blamed it on a heart condition called mitral valve prolapse and said tests showed no evidence he was dehydrated. The weather channel was predicting partly cloudy skies and warm temperatures for Sunday — not ideal, but manageable. The heat got to Njenga, who hopes to break an odd pattern of second-place finishes in 2002, ‘04 and ‘06 and third-place showings last year along with 2003 and ‘05. Based in Japan, he started training earlier than usual in July and has been working out three times a day. “I’m hoping Sunday is going to be my year," he said. He won’t have to contend with last year’s winner Patrick Ivuti of Kenya or runner-up Jaouad Gharib of Morocco. Ivuti is injured and Gharib is sitting this one out after taking the silver medal at the Olympics, but the field still is deep. William Kipsang of Kenya won at Rotterdam in April with the fifth-fastest time this year — 2 hours, 5 minutes, 49 seconds — and was seventh at Chicago in 2005. Emmanuel Mutai was fourth at London that month with a 2:06:15, and Arata Fujiwara of Japan (2:08:40) placed second at Tokyo in February. Tomescu-Dita is looking for another big performance in an already successful year. She won in Chicago in 2004, finishing in 2:23:45, and turned in a personal-best 2:21:30 the following year while placing second. Of course, her biggest moment came in Beijing, and it was a bit of a surprise. A leg injury sidelined her for four months last year and prevented her from running in Chicago. She divorced her husband, who also happens to be her coach, this year yet still managed to become the oldest woman to win an Olympic marathon medal. Now, she’s competing again, but if she’s worried about the short layoff, she’s doing a good job hiding it. “I don’t have any," said Tomescu-Dita, who lives and trains in Boulder, Colorado. She took a week off after Beijing and then got back to training. Her legs feel fine, and she’s eyeing another run for the gold in London in 2012. She even wants to compete in the 2016 Games if they’re in Chicago, but there’s a more immediate task at hand. Standing in her way are defending champion Berhane Adere of Ethiopia and runner-up Adriana Pirtea of Romania. Adere was seventh at the London Marathon but was unable to finish at the Olympics after the Ethiopian federation made her change her training routine. She said all the runners followed the same routine rather than their own, and that hurt her. Now, she’s back in shape and looking to repeat in Chicago, while Pirtea hopes to avoid another meltdown. She had a comfortable 30-second lead late into last year’s race and needed two months to get over that collapse. – AP