Introduced by the moderator were last year’s 2nd place finisher, Barselius Kipyego of Kenya who has a personal best of 59:15, Olympic medalist Galen Rupp from the U.S., and the Italian Daniele Meucci a former European Marathon Champion. These three will face a strong field of Kenyans and others including two other sub one hour men; Geoffrey Yegon and Abraham Kipyatich (RunCzech Racing Team member). Kipyego’s winning time in Usti nad Labem of 59:15 made him the 3rd fastest half marathoner in the world in 2016. And in the press conference held today he stated that he intended to go under one hour for the third time in the Czech Republic. Rupp could challenge the ten year old U.S. record of 59:43 while Meucci figures to run much faster than the 1:03:43 he ran in Milan on March 19th following a stint of training at altitude in Eritrea.

The women’s field will be led by defending Champion. Violah Jepchumba who ran the fastest time in the world in 2016, 1:05:51, making her the 3rd fastest woman in history on a record eligible course. The soft spoken Jepchumba did not predict a time for tomorrow, but she is known to run hard from the gun. She will have to contend with the 23 year old Joyceline Jepkosgei (a member of RunCzech Racing Team) who stated that she is happy to be back in Prague after her breakthrough race in the RAK Half earlier this year. She clocked a 1:06:08 for a huge personal best. The third woman introduced at the conference was Jordon Hasay whose debut half marathon in January produced an impressive 1:08:40. Hasay said she would be very happy to get a new personal best before her full marathon debut in Boston in two weeks.

Also on hand was the top Czech woman, Eva Vrabcova, who was welcomed into the RunCzech Racing Team by the Race Director, Václav Skřivánek,and the top ranked Czech man, Jiri Homolac newly returned from training at altitude in Kenya with hopes of going under 1:03 tomorrow.

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