Kenya's Elisha Rotich's name was missing from the Chicago Marathon list of athletes one day before the race day.
Rotich's last race was in October 2021, when he won the Paris Marathon with a time of 2:04:21. The 31-year-old has won a total of six international marathons in his career.
His withdrawal means that the trio of Eric Kiptanui, Benson Kipruto and Bernard Koech will work hard to win the race dominated by Ethiopians.
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In the top 20 list of athletes ranked in order of the fastest Personal Best (PB) Ethiopia dominates with six athletes, followed by Japan with five and Kenya with four.
The others are from China (2), Uganda, Morocco and Eretria, with one representative each.
Kenya’s Bernard Koech is third on the list of athletes with the fastest PB (2:04:09), despite not racing since October 2021 in Amsterdam.
The other Kenyan on the list is Benson Kipruto, the 2021 Boston Marathon winner who will be heading the race with a PB of 2:05:13.
One of the race favourites, Ethiopia’s Seifu Tura, will be aiming to become the first back-to-back winner of the men’s race for over a decade, having won the 2021 edition.
Herpasa Negasa from Ethiopia, who has the fastest PB 2:03:40 recorded in Dubai in 2019, will also be seeking to win the race.
Others include Ethiopian half marathon record-holder Jemal Yimer and his compatriot Shifera Tamru, who won the Daegu marathon in April 2022.
Abayneh Degu closes the list of Ethiopians. The 23-year-old has a personal best of 59:58 set in the 2019 Istanbul Marathon.
The Chicago marathon is scheduled to take place on Sunday, October 9.
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