Waterfront Marathon adds second sub-2:06 star

FG_STWM11_718Three years ago Shami Abdulahi Dawud came within a step of winning the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. It would have been his first international victory at the distance. The 30-year-old Ethiopian returns to the race this Oct. 19 a much more experienced and determined athlete.

Like several of his rivals, he has been informed about the course record, but Abdulahi has one distinct advantage: the man who has shared detailed information on running fast in Toronto is Derissa Chimsa, the record holder himself. The pair are training partners.

“I remembered I lost the victory in the last meter of the 2011 race and I don’t forget the people of Toronto who support us in the race,” Abdulahi recalls.

Following the 2011 visit to Canada’s largest city, he received an invitation to race the 2012 Dubai Marathon and took advantage of the opportunity. He recorded a new personal best of 2:05:42. The man who finished a step behind him on that occasion was Chimsa.

When Chimsa ran that impressive 2:07:05 a year ago it was, at the time, also the fastest time ever recorded on Canadian soil. It has since been bettered by another Ethiopian, Yemane Tsegay, who ran 2:06:54 in Ottawa this spring. Abdulahi has no doubt done the math. A new Canadian all-comers record would earn him an additional $40,000 on top of the $20,000 first place prize. Significant time bonuses provide even more incentive to run fast.

Abdulahi certainly has the credentials to chase this record. His magnificent Dubai result was not a one-off situation either. Three months afterwards, Abdulahi won the 2012 Hamburg Marathon in 2:05:58, his second time under 2:06. He is the second sub-2:06 man to be confirmed for the 2013 Toronto race, the other being Kenya’s Peter Some.

Although training and the recovery takes up most of his days, Abdulahi admits to enjoying watching action movies on television as well as English Premier League football. The latter pastime is something he shares with his rival Peter Some. The Kenyan is a committed Manchester United supporter while Abdulahi loves Chelsea. The pair, no doubt, will be aware that the two teams play one another the week following the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

Abdulahi comes from a family of farmers who grow corn and sorghum in Harar, Ethiopia. Twice a year he returns to the region to visit his parents, his three sisters and four brothers. In a country where the per capita income is $470, his running brings opportunities to provide for family as well as ensure some economic security for himself. In the future, he says, he will invest in a business but for now he is concentrating solely on his running.

With the addition of Abdulahi, this year’s Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon is the strongest field assembled for the event. Whether the records will fall is to be seen, but both Some and Abdulahi have designs on victory as well as the record prize purse and that bodes well for the race.

Edited from a press release by Paul Gains.

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