In less than a month the 41st Amsterdam Waterland Marathon will take place. On the 20th of April we will see a diverse group of world class athletes taking on the challenge of beating each other and the track record set by Manuel Busto Fernandez, who has won the Waterland marathon twice.

Tournament director and ex -European Champion Edwin de Nijs shares his expectations of the upcoming episode of the ICF Classic Marathon series:

For the senior men’s competition I expect a very tough race for the world class athletes as well as for all others, due to the great variety of international paddlers. Our Dutch representative Joep van Bakel, who finished in 6th place at the last Marathon World Championships, will be challenged by the Swedish Jacob Holst, his training buddy Rasmus Jaruta, the Hungarian Gyula Bauer, Thomas Jezek and Spanish Miquel Adsera.

The Swedish athletes are expected to be very fit since they are practicing an extensive training program in Florida as we speak. They will need to be fit if they want to take on the challenge of beating Thomas Jezek, who in the past has won several medals at European and World Championship races. With such a winner’s attitude, I expect Thomas will try to dominate the race with a very high race pace. This kind of competition will encourage the ambition of beating the track record set by Busto, especially when tough and experienced racers such as Emilio Merchan and Ivan Alonso are also expected to compete. With these athletes it is very likely that, given the right conditions, the track record might just be broken. The outsiders in this race on the 20th of April are the Irish, Belgian and Ghanese who might just manage to tag along with the world class athletes.

Personally for me I am excited as this year will be the first time I have the official honor to give the “ready, set, go!” of yet another very international edition of the Amsterdam Waterland Marathon. We hope that the presence of these exciting competitors at our race will also inspire more juniors, masters and women to join in. You are all very welcome to come to our unique event and also visit Amsterdam.

Links

• Interested? Contact entries@kvviking.nl
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/events/510847285616989
• Website: www.kvviking.nl/2011/waterland-marathon
• Race report 2012: The 2012 Amsterdam Waterland Marathon