Press Release - Vienna City Marathon - 4/15/13

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

                 Henry Sugut: Home Advantage in Vienna

Playing at home usually is an advantage. For Henry Sugut it seems that 
whenever he runs in Vienna he has a homegame. On Sunday the Kenyan became 
only the second man in history to win the Vienna City Marathon for a third 
time. The other one is Austrian Gerhard Hartmann, whose victories came back 
in the 80s. 

"I am very proud to have won the Vienna City Marathon three times," said 27 
year-old Henry Sugut after crossing the line in 2:08:19, the second fastest 
time in his career. "Whenever I come to Vienna my self confidence is high. 
Even during the race I always felt confident." His Vienna success story 
looks indeed extraordinary. So far Henry Sugut has competed in eight 
marathons. Three of them he ran in Vienna: First he won in 2010 with 
2:08:40, then he improved the course record and his personal best to 
2:06:58 in 2012 and on Sunday he added a third victory. Out of his four 
fastest times in the marathon three are from Vienna. Only twice he clocked 
a sub 2:09 time elsewhere: In 2011 he was seventh in Paris with 2:08:22 and 
then finished tenth in Frankfurt in 2:08:56. 

"Before I travelled to Vienna last year my younger brother Dominik told me: 
This is your race," recalls Henry Sugut. "Now he said the same again." 
Henry Sugut is the eldest of nine children and he has a family himself with 
two girls of the age of five and one. They live in Eldoret. But Henry Sugut 
does a lot of his training in Kaptabet. His manager Jos Hermens has a 
training camp there which is run by Patrick Sang, the former world-class 
steeplechaser. 

One of Henry Sugut's training partners is his 21 year-old brother Dominik. 
"He is the only one of my brothers and sisters who is also running. He ran 
around 14 minutes in a 5,000 metre race in high altitude," says Henry 
Sugut. Asked if he intends to bring him to Europe in the future for races 
he answers: "Dominik will probably run a half marathon in Uganda next 
month. Afterwards we will see." 
 
Henry Sugut did not run seriously at school level. When he was 17 he began 
training more properly, but he had no coach at this time. In June 2002 he 
was fourth in the national junior 5,000 m championships. Afterwards he 
joined the group of Jos Hermens. "But I was unlucky at first because I had 
an injury and could not run in 2003. So it was in 2004 when I finally 
started training seriously."

When he was injured in 2003 it was the year Paul Tergat broke the world 
marathon record in Berlin (2:04:55). "This gave me a lot of motivation. I 
admired Paul Tergat and Patrick Sang. Sometimes I used to go to my 
neighbours to watch them racing, because we had no TV at home," recalls 
Henry Sugut. 

After a shorter career on the track (PB at 5,000 m is 13:08.90 from 2004) 
the Kenyan turned to the marathon in 2009. He ran his debut in Reims and 
finished third with 2:10:45. His next race was his first Vienna Marathon in 
2010. "Nowadays I fully concentrate on the marathon, so I usually don't run 
any other races," says Henry Sugut. However he did run as a pacemaker in 
Patrick Makau's world record race at the Berlin Marathon in 2011, covering 
the first 25 k. 

Henry Sugut will now target an autumn marathon. "In the future it is my 
goal to lower my personal best." And then there may well be another Vienna 
Marathon. Henry Sugut could make history in Austria by becoming the first 
runner to win the race four times. "That would be great if I could achieve 
that!" The next Vienna City Marathon will take place on 13th April 2014. 
Henry Sugut will probably have made a note in his diary already.

For more information please visit: www.vienna-marathon.com.

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