Felix Limo heads a fast field for the 62nd Fukuoka Open Marathon Championship on 7 December

Felix Limo heads a fast field for the 62nd Fukuoka Open Marathon Championship on 7 December. The high-quality elite field continues a tradition, implied by the race's official name, that it has upheld since foundation: to offer top-class international competition to the best Japanese runners.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s it was unquestionably the world's foremost marathon outside of official international championships and it continues to host the world's best runners: the 2006 winner was Haile Gebrselassie and last year it was won by Samuel Wanjiru, who went on to win Olympic Gold in Beijing.

The man most likely to press Limo towards yet another sub-2:07 winning time is Olympic bronze medalist Tsegaye Kebede, although the race always brings out the best of the still strong Japanese challenge.

Tsuyoshi Ogata, Shigeru Aburaya, Arata Fujiwara, Yuko Matsumiya, Satoshi Irifune and Tomoyuki Sato all contest, alongside Aleksay Sokolov and Yuri Hychun from Russia, Canadian Jon Brown and Spain's Jose Manuel Martinez.

Source: AIMS.org