Mockenhaupt, Kraus and Dreher: 3 fast German women to battle it out in the Frankfurt marathon 2008

September 20, 2008

With Melanie Kraus, Sabrina Mockenhaupt and Claudia Dreher, three of the strongest German marathon women are on the participants list of the Dresdner Kleinwort Frankfurt Marathon 2008 on October 26th.
Defending Champion and Beijing Olympian Melanie Kraus will return to Frankfurt after finishing 38th in the Olympic marathon. The 33-year old won last year’s Frankfurt marathon in 2:28:56h to upset the pre-race favourite Svetlana Zakharova (RUS) and to qualify for the Olympic Games 2008. This year she wants to go sub 2:30h again, which would mean that she would break the qualification time for the Berlin World Championships 2009. So far Melanie Kraus’s PB is 2:27:58 (2000, Berlin).
However, she will have tough competitors. Most of all this will probably be 10.000m-Olympian Sabrina Mockenhaupt, who will run her 2nd marathon. Mockenhaupt proved to be in a good shape this summer, improving both her 10.000m track time (with a 13th place finish at the Beijing Olympics 2008 in 31:14.21min; 15.08.08) and her 10K-road race time (2nd place to Irina Mikitenko in German 10K Road Race Championships; 31:50min; 13.09.08). In her marathon debut in 2007 in Cologne the 27-year old Mockenhaupt ran a 2:29:33h. On the fast course in Frankfurt she aims to improve this PR.
Competition for those two will also come from Claudia Dreher. Even if she is the oldest of the German trio with her 37 years, the chances are good that she will come out as the fastest women. Dreher had a really unlucky start of the 2008 season, when she fell hard in a training session and suffered several severe bruises and effusions in the knee and rip area. The dream of the Olympics was busted. Now that she has recovered from this incident she is focusing on the Berlin 2009 qualification. In 2006, Dreher took 4th place with 2:32:22h in Frankfurt and has a PR of 2:27:55h (1999, Hannover).

The international field will include Norway’s Kirsten Melkevik Otterbu (2nd in Frankfurt 2006 with 2:31:20h and 3rd in Frankfurt 2007 with a PR of 2:29:12h) as well as the Russian twins Olesya and Elena Nurgalieva (1st and 2nd in Frankfurt 2004 in 2:29:48h and 2:29:49h).