New York City Marathon 2013 - Women's Bios

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New York City Marathon 2013 - Women's Bios
Courtesy of New York Road Runners

photo: Victah Sailer / PhotoRun
Edna Kiplagat
Age: 34
Country: KEN
PB: 2:19:50, 2012 London Marathon
Kiplagat, the 2010 ING New York City Marathon champion, would clinch the 2012–13 World Marathon Majors title with a win this year. (She's in a battle with her compatriot Priscah Jeptoo.) In August, she won her second consecutive IAAF World Championships Marathon by outlasting fellow 2013 ING New York City Marathon entrant Valeria Straneo of Italy in Moscow. She ran her personal best of 2:19:50 to take second in last year's London race. Kiplagat is formidable in New York; she won the 2012 New York Mini 10K and was second in the 2011 NYC Half.

photo: Victah Sailer / PhotoRun
Priscah Jeptoo
Age: 29
Country: KEN
PB: 2:20:14, 2012 London Marathon
Jeptoo won the 2013 Virgin London Marathon in 2:20:15. Her personal-best time is one second faster-2:20:14-and she ran it on the same London course in 2012 to place third. Jeptoo also won the 2011 Paris Marathon and the 2009 Turin Marathon, and she was the silver medalist at both the 2012 London Olympic Marathon and the 2011 IAAF World Championships Marathon. This past February, she ran the third-fastest half-marathon of all time, 1:06:11, to place second at the RAK Half-Marathon; she improved that to 1:05:45 at the Bupa Great North Run half-marathon on a record-ineligible course in September, defeating perhaps the two greatest female distance runners in track history, Ethiopians Meseret Defar and Tirunesh Dibaba. Jeptoo will be making her ING New York City Marathon debut-and with a chance to win the 2012–2013 World Marathon Majors title if she outlasts her countrywoman Edna Kiplagat.

photo: Victah Sailer / PhotoRun
Firehiwot Dado
Age: 29
Country: ETH
PB: 2:23:15, 2011 New York City Marathon
Dado returns to New York as the defending champion, having won her 2011 debut in 2:23:15 after a dogfight with her countrywoman and friend Buzunesh Deba and Kenya's Mary Keitany. She won three consecutive Rome Marathons (2009–2011), getting faster each time, and she had won five consecutive major races before finishing fourth in the 2012 Boston Marathon. At the 2012 NYC Half, Dado set a new event record of 1:08:35 She was scheduled to run the 2012 ING New York City Marathon but withdraw before the cancellation of the race due to injury. She's eager to return to the podium in New York.

photo: Victah Sailer / PhotoRun
Bizunesh Deba
Age: 26
Country: ETH
PB: 2:23:19, 2011 New York City Marathon
Like many top Ethiopian athletes, Deba is a contender to win the ING New York City Marathon. Unlike most of her compatriots, she lives and trains in New York City, taking the subway from her home in the Bronx to track workouts and sometimes running the 31-mile circumference of Manhattan. She has won eight of the 12 marathons she has entered, with three of those losses coming in New York-where, however, she has never failed to make the top 10. That includes her down-to-the-wire runner-up finish in 2011 to her friend and countrywoman (and fellow 2013 New York entrant) Firehiwot Dado. Her time of 2:23:19 made her the fastest female New York resident in history.

photo: Victah Sailer / PhotoRun
Jelena Prokopcuka
Age: 37
Country: LVA
PB: 2:22:56, 2005 Osaka Marathon
Prokopcuka, a two-time ING New York City Marathon winner, is back in the race for the first time since 2007. Her first five-borough victory came in 2005, when she pulled away from Kenya's Susan Chepkemei along Central Park South. The next year, she broke away from her last challengers at 35 kilometers and won by exactly a minute. Prokopcuka is the Latvian record-holder in the marathon, half-marathon, 20K, 10K, 10,000 meters, 5000 meters, and 3000 meters. She represented Latvia in the 1996, 2000, and 2004 Olympics. Prokopcuka learned English on her own, working with a tutor and reading the Harry Potter series. After spending some time away from racing, she produced an excellent 1:08:09 half-marathon in England last year.

photo: Victah Sailer / PhotoRun
Janet Bawcom
Age: 35
Country: USA
PB: 2:29:45, 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials (Houston)
Bawcom, a Kenyan native who now has American citizenship, didn't run her first competitive race until age 20. At Harding University in Arkansas, she was an eight-time Division II All-American and a three-time national champion. In 2010, she was inducted into the U.S. Track and Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Her wins at the USA 15K, 10-Mile, and 25K road championships in 2012 made her the USA Running Circuit overall champion for the second straight year. (She has now won three consecutive USA 10-Mile Championships.) After finishing fifth in the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon, Bawcom bounced back to make Team USA at 10,000 meters. In her first Olympics, she ran a personal best of 31:12.68 to take 12th place in London. A frequent racer, Bawcom has scaled back her competition schedule this summer to focus on a strong result in New York.

photo: Victah Sailer / PhotoRun
Adriana Nelson (nee Pirtea)
Age: 33
Country: USA
PB: 2:28:52, 2008 London Marathon
Nelson, Romanian by birth, became an American citizen in 2011. She won her first national title at this year's U.S. Half-Marathon Championships in Duluth, MN, in a time of 1:11:19. Her personal bests include a 2:28:52 marathon and a 1:09:57 half-marathon. Nelson has recently returned to top form after recovering from injury; she'll be making her ING New York City Marathon debut this year.

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New York City Marathon 2013 - Women's Bios