Mara Yamauchi and Natalie Harvey have been forced to withdraw from the 1st IAAF World Road Running Championships in Debrecen, Hungary, on Sunday 8 October.
Yamauchi (Harrow AC), the Commonwealth 10,000m bronze medallist who also competed in the IAAF World Cross Country Championships and led home the UK women in the Flora London Marathon last spring, has a viral infection and has reluctantly decided she needs more time to recover from her exertions in the Rotterdam Half Marathon, which she won in 70 minutes 38 seconds on 10 September. This will be the first time in more than two years that she has not been in a Norwich Union GB Team for a major endurance competition.
Harvey (South London Harriers), another regular in Norwich Union GB cross country and road teams, has suffered a recurrence of a back injury since she qualified for these Championships by clocking 73:50 at the trials in Glasgow on 3 September.
UK Athletics selectors invited Tracey Morris (Valley Striders) and Birhan Dagne (Belgrave Harriers) to step in as replacements, but neither was able to accept because of their commitment to last weekend’s BUPA Great North Run.
Still competing for the Norwich Union GB team in Debrecen are – Wendy Jones (Cirencester AC) and Susan Partridge (City of Glasgow AC) – for a 20km race in which the individual favourites are the Asian and African record-holders for the distance, Kayoko Fukushi (Japan) and Edith Masai (Kenya), plus the European Cross Country Champion Lornah Kiplagat (Netherlands).
