Men's full length event to be a 3-horse race in Indian Open Marathon

New Delhi, Sep 15 (UNI) The men's full length event will be a three-horse race with Bhairon Singh Lone, Surinder Kumar and KC Ramu giving each other literally a good run for their money in the Mawana Sugars Indian Open Marathon here on Sunday.

Lone, a Railways athlete and winner of the 1998 Rath Marathon, will pose serius challenge to others, while Surinder will be high on confidence after winning the Delhi International Marathon early this year. Ramu, on the other hand, has an impressive rtack record and the 2005 Bangalore International Marathon winner wuold also prove a tough customer.

In the women's full marathon, national record holder Satyabhama and Indresh Dhiraj would have to outrun Leelamma to win the race.

Leelamma has been quite impressive in recent past, winning the 2005 Bangalore International and this year's Delhi International Marathon.

In men's half, the competition will be confined to Deep Chand, winner of 2005 Delhi Half Marathon, Surender Singh who won the 10 km Gold in SAf Games and Raghunath, winner of the SAF 10 KM Silver.

Women's half marathon would be a two-way battle between Railway athletes Sarojini Devi and Pampa Chawla.

Former Asia champions Sunita Godara and Asha Aggarwal will fight it out in the veteran section.

''More than 1000 runners have already regstered and we expect it to be a grabd success,'' organisers said.

UNI AY DH DB1904