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Dita Looking to Charge Ahead in Chicago

Posted October 11th, 2008 at 9:30 AM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Marathons

Constantina Tomescu Dita At yesterday’s kick-off press conference for the 31st Bank of America Chicago Marathon, Olympic Marathon champion Constantina Dita was introduced to the assembled media by 2004 Olympic Marathon bronze medalist Deena Kastor. When Dita rose to speak at the podium, reporters also rose to give her a standing ovation, something rarely seen at this kind of gathering.

Dita, her blue eyes beaming and just a little misty, looked at race director Carey Pinkowski seated next to her.

“He’s a great person,” she said of Pinkowski who looks noticeably trimmer than last year. “I think he’s training more because he’s more skinny.”

Laughter erupted, and the good times just kept rolling for the 38 year-old Romanian who became the oldest-ever Olympic Marathon champion when she made a solo break for victory in the second half of the race and was never caught. She’s on familiar ground here in Chicago, a race she won in 2004. She almost defended that title in 2005 when eventual winner Deena Kastor slowed in the final miles, but came up five seconds short in a national record 2:21:30.

Dita will be running Sunday’s race just 56 days after winning in Beijing, but she said yesterday that she’s feeling good and is ready to run. She focused hard on her recovery, she said, and spent a lot of time on the massage table.

“I feel OK,” she told reporters. “The problem is only because I travel a lot. For the legs I feel OK because I did the preparation, I got every day massage. I come in here and I got two hours every day massage. I feel OK.”

In 2006 here Dita tried one of her trademark escapes in a serious bid to break the 2:20 barrier. Running behind a group of men Dita flew threw 5-K in 16:04, 10-K in 32:13, 15-K in 48:14, 20-K in 1:04:30 and the half-way mark in 1:08:07, times which would have won most races at those distances. Her half-way split was just five seconds slower than Paula Radcliffe’s when she set her mixed-gender world record of 2:15:25 at the Flora London Marathon in 2003.

“I think now it was too fast,” Dita told Race Results Weekly after the 2006 race.

Dita went through 25 km in 1:21:31 and 30 km in 1:38:30, both under the IAAF ratified world record times for those distances. She had a two-minute lead, but all was not well.

“I feel bad after 35 kilometers,” she said back in 2006. “The last 2-K I died.”

The wheels had fallen off and four women –Berhane Adere, Galina Bogomolova, Benita Johnson and Madai Perez– all passed her. For Adere it was her first of two victories here, and she’s back again this year to tangle again with Dita. Adere failed to finish the Olympic Marathon recording her last split at the 30-K mark.

Skeptics would say that Adere is probably better rested than Dita, but the Romanian thinks she has history on her side. In 2005 she won the bronze medal in the marathon at the IAAF World Championships, clocking 2:23:19. Forty-eight days later, she won the IAAF World Half-Marathon title, then rallied back eight days after that to run her national record at Chicago. In a span of just 56 days she ran two top-notch marathons and a half-marathon.

“I run one time before in Helsinki with the World Championships,” she recalled. “I come in third place in 2:23. “And I come back here in Chicago after seven weeks and I run 2:21. I run national record for me and I come in second place, and I feel OK.”

She’s not predicting victory, but she feels confident that she can perform well.

“I can come in top-3 this year and win, maybe. We’ll see what I am doing Sunday.”