Athletics: Chinese eyes on marathon

WANG JUNXIA and Qu Yunxia of China, who broke three world records between them last month, are to run in the World Marathon Cup on 31 October in San Sebastian, Spain.

Wang broke the 3,000 and 10,000 metres records and was also inside the old 1500m record broken by Qu in the Chinese championships in Peking last month. At the World Championships in Stuttgart, Wang won the 10,000m and Qu the 3,000m.

In April, Wang won the Tianjin marathon in an impressive 2hr 24min 07sec. The runners' coach, Ma Junren, said that 31 2 weeks of intensive altitude training on the plateaus of Yunnan Province should get his women fit. He claims they average 180 miles a week in training, the equivalent of about one marathon a day.