Kara Goucher is a passionate competitor who may just win a medal on Sunday. © www.photorun.net

The names of the pre-race favorites in the World Championship Marathon are all Ethiopian with the exception of one: Kara Goucher. The 31-year-old American caught the attention of the running world two years ago in Osaka when she surprised the field to take bronze in the 10,000 meters. Later that year, she beat the world-record holder in the marathon, Paula Radcliffe, at the Great North Run, running a blazing 66:57 minutes, which was a new American record.

With neither Radcliffe nor defending champion Catherine Ndereba starting in Berlin on Sunday, Goucher stands an outside chance of victory. Were she to succeed, she would be the first American to win the marathon at the world championships.

Last November, Goucher debuted at the marathon in New York City, running 2:25:33 hours—a very respectable time and good for third overall. In April at the Boston Marathon, she finished third again, after leading the field with just a few hundred meters to the finish line. Just recently, she proved her great form when she won the Chicago half-marathon in 68:05 minutes. Afterwards, she travelled to St. Moritz, Switzerland to prepare for the race in Berlin and appears to be in fantastic shape.

Originally, however, Goucher had other plans for the season. After the Boston Marathon in April, she planned to take a break to have a child with her husband, two-time U.S. champion in the 5,000 meters, Adam Goucher. But she was so disappointed to have missed the chance to win the Boston Marathon in April that she decided to postpone her plans.

Her passion to win after Boston (Editor’s note: This year’s Boston Marathon was a tactical and slow race for all runners.) was so strong she even toyed with the idea of running the London Marathon, which was only six days after the Boston Marathon. “For three days I kept on telling myself that I really wanted to run in London. In the course of our discussion, however, my coach suggested that we run the world championship race if I really wanted to run another marathon. After a week, I decided to prepare for Berlin,” Goucher recalls. Her coach is world-class marathoner Alberto Salazar who won the New York Marathon three times in a row from 1980 to 1982. He also won the Boston Marathon in 1982.

“It would have been silly to go to London,” Goucher said later. Since the end of April, she has exclusively focused on the world championship marathon in which she hopes to “win a medal or at least to achieve a good result would be great for me.”