Invited Athletes

Women

Aziza Aliyu
Ethiopia
Age: 22

Like many of her Westchester Track Club teammates, Aliyu is a Bronx resident from Ethiopia who, despite a heavy racing schedule, keeps getting faster. So set a half-marathon PR of 1:12:30 at this year’s 3M Half-Marathon in Austin and a women’s event record at the Healthy Kidney 10K in May in Central Park. Since April 2007, Aliyu has won seven NYRR events. She was seventh at the 2006 NYC Half in 1:15:18.

Ann Alyanak
United States
Age: 29

Alyanak, of Bellbrook, OH, finished seventh in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Women’s Marathon last April in 2:34:46, a PR by more than four minutes. In 2007, she was ninth overall at the Boston Marathon and second in the USA Marathon Championships, a performance that earned her a spot on the U.S. team for the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan, where she finished 31st. Alyanak is the head coach for the women’s cross country team at the University of Dayton.

Alevtina Biktimirova
Russia
Age: 25

Biktimirova, the reigning Honolulu Marathon champion, led for much of the second half of this year’s Boston Marathon before being outkicked by Ethiopia’s Dire Tune in the final 400 meters. A prolific marathoner, she also placed third in Toronto and Rotterdam in 2007, second in Honolulu in 2006, sixth in the European Championships in 2006 (leading the Russian team to the silver medal), and first in Frankfurt in 2005 (in 2:25:12, her PR and a course record). She will almost certainly eclipse her PR of 1:18 at the NYC Half.

Rose Cheruiyot
Kenya
Age: 32

Cheruiyot has sterling credentials at distances from 5K to the marathon. She ran 14:58.07 to finish 11th in the 5000 meters at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. So far this year she has had two strong runner-up finishes at the 10K distance and ran 2:25:48 to finish fourth at the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon. The mother of a 5-year-old daughter, Cheruiyot set her half-marathon PR of 1:09:32 when she won the Berlin Half-Marathon in 2002.

Colleen De Reuck
United States
Age: 44

Four-time Olympian De Reuck, a native of South Africa, became a U.S. citizen in 2000. She was the individual bronze medalist at the 2002 IAAF World Cross Country Championships and helped the USA to the team silver. She won the 2004 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, earning her ticket to the Athens Games. In 2006, De Reuck finished second at the USA Cross Country Championships in New York City’s Van Cortlandt Park and was fifth at the inaugural NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE. Her 1:08:38 half-marathon PR is the third-fastest in the field.

Zoila Gómez
United States
Age: 29

Gómez finished fourth at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Women’s Marathon in April. At age 17, she moved from her native Mexico to the United States, and she earned 11 All-America honors and won six NCAA Division II championships for Adams State College in Colorado. She acquired U.S. citizenship after graduation, and she placed third in the 2006 USA Marathon Championships. Gómez finished eighth at the 2007 NYC Half, and she has a PR of 1:13:49. She lives in Alamosa, CO.

Benita Johnson
Australia
Age: 29

Johnson finished second in the 2006 NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE, losing by less than one second in a sprint finish against Catherine Ndereba. She has a sparkling record at the half-marathon distance, having never finished lower than third place in six career races and holding a PR of 1:07:55. She won the 2004 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, and in 2006 she finished fourth in both the short- and long-course races at World Cross in Japan. Johnson holds the Australian marathon record of 2:22:36.

Yuri Kano
Japan
Age: 29

Kano has taken fourth place in both previous editions of the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE. Her personal-best time of 1:08:57, which she ran this year to win the Sapporo Half-Marathon, makes her the fourth-fastest woman in this year’s field, behind Catherine Ndereba, Benita Johnson, and Colleen De Reuck. Kano has a personal best of 31:53.07 for 10,000 meters, and she debuted at the marathon in Osaka last year in a sparkling 2:24:43. She lives in Tokyo.

Everlyne Lagat
Kenya
Age: 27

Lagat, the younger sister of Olympic medalist and reigning 1500-meter and 5000-meter world champion Bernard Lagat of the United States, attended college at Washington State University, Malone College, and the University of Toledo. She finished fifth in the 2008 NYRR New York Mini 10K in June after running with the lead pack for much of the race. Though she is a citizen of Kenya, Lagat spends most of the year living and training in Albuquerque. Her half-marathon PR is 1:11:35.

Catherine Ndereba
Kenya
Age: 36

In 2001, “Catherine the Great” was the first woman to crack the 2:19 marathon barrier. In 2003, she became the first African woman to win the World Championships Marathon, and she followed that with silver-medal marathon performances in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki. She reclaimed her World Championships marathon title in 2007. A four-time champion of the Boston Marathon and a two-time winner of the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, Ndereba won the inaugural NYC Half-Marathon presented by NIKE in 2006; last year she lost by one second to Hilda Kibet. Her half-marathon PR of 1:07:54 is the field’s fastest, and she has 17 victories in 24 known attempts at the distance.

Madaí Pérez
Mexico
Age: 28

Pérez, who will represent Mexico next month at the Beijing Olympic Games marathon, she set a personal best for 10,000 meters (31:30.23) in May and was second at the NYRR New York Mini 10K in June. In 2007 she finished third in the Boston Marathon and fifth in the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE. She holds the Mexican marathon record of 2:22:59, set in Chicago in 2006, and she has run 1:10:37 for the half-marathon.

Kiyoko Shimahara
Japan
Age: 31

Shimahara has an impressive 1:10:16 PR for the half-marathon distance. In her six career marathons, she has never finished out of the top five and has only once run slower than 2:30. Shimahara was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture and currently trains in Japan, China, and the United States. She represents the Second Wind AC team and is a 1999 graduate of Kokushikan University with a degree in physical fitness.

Alice Timbilili
Kenya
Age: 25

Timbilili set her half-marathon PR of 1:08:56 at last September’s Jefferson Hospital Philadelphia Distance Run, where she was the runner-up. She is a two-time Kenyan Olympian in the 10,000 meters, having finished 14th (31:50.22) in Sydney in 2000 and 16th (32:12.27) in Athens in 2004. The niece of 2004 African 800-meter champion Nancy Lagat, Timbilili burst onto the international running scene at a young age, running 32:34.2 for 10,000 meters at age 16. The 2008 NYC Half will be her New York City racing debut.