Two of the world's greatest Track & Field athletes of recent times, Gail Devers of USA and Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco will grace the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2009, on January 18, as Event Ambassadors, a release from event promoters Procam International said.
Both multiple Olympic and World Championship Gold medalists, Devers and El Guerrouj will join the illustrious lists of the world's leading athletes who have graced the event over the past five years.
Gail Devers overcame Graves' disease, a debilitating chronic thyroid disorder, before winning her first Gold medal in the 100m sprint at the Barcelona Olympics in 2002. She repeated the feat at the 1996 Atlanta Games, becoming only the second woman to win the prestigious event at the two consecutive Olympics. Devers was also on the gold medal-winning 4x100 relay team. Devers also won gold medals in the 100m sprint and the 100m hurdles at the Stuttgart World Championships in 1993, in the 100m hurdles at the 1995 World Championships and in the 100m hurdles at the Seville World Championships in 1999.
El Guerrouj, nicknamed "The King of the Mile", began his domination of the 1500 in 1995 and won World Championship Gold medals over that distance in 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2003. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, El Guerrouj won Gold medals in the 1500 and 5000m races, becoming the first runner to achieve the 1500/5000 double since Paavo Nurmi in 1924.
Over a nine-year period, El Guerrouj raced in 86 finals at 1500m and the mile and won 83 of those races. El Guerrouj was named best athlete of the year by the IAAF in 2001 and 2002 after remaining unbeaten in more than 20 races and thus becoming the first man to win athlete of the year titles in consecutive years.
Also, in 2002, he was chosen, together with the British athlete Paula Radcliffe, best athlete of the year by the prestigious athletics journal Track and Field News.
The other leading athletes to grace the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon in previous years have been Michael Johnson, Mike Powell, Linford Christie, Steve Ovett, Kelly Holmes, Anju Bobby George, Paul Tergat, to name a few.
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