March 11, 2010  Print Email | Dita sets sights on London Marathon
She won gold at Beijing
Posted by Agencies at 10:18 AM GMT on Mar 24, 2009 | TOKYO (AFP): Romania's Constantina Dita, who became the oldest Olympic marathon champion last year at 38, is eyeing a gold medal in the London Marathon, an event she has never won in seven previous attempts.
If she succeeds, then she might think seriously about an unprecedented successive gold in the same city at the 2012 Games.
 Travelling and public appearances in the wake of her gold medal triumph in Beijing have restricted her training ahead of the 26 April race in London.
There is also the pressure that comes with being an Olympic champion.
"I have a different feeling about going to London this time because everyone will be putting their attention on me," the Romanian, who ran in a 10km event at the Tokyo Marathon at the weekend to help promote the city's bid for the 2016 Olympics, told AFP.
"After the Olympics, my life changed a lot. I am busier and I travel more," said the 1.65m and 48kg blonde.
"But I've done general basic training like I did before each big marathon," said Dita (39), and who has lived with her 14-year-old son in Colorado since 2005 for altitude training.
Dita finished second at the 2005 London Marathon to hometown favourite and world-record holder Paula Radcliffe and came third in 2004 and 2007. Radcliffe has pulled out of this year's race due to injury.
Dita cited Kenya's two-time world champion Catherine Ndereba and China's Zhou Chunxiu, the 2007 London winner, as her major rivals.
She is also aware of the dangers posed by defending champion Irina Mikitenko of Germany and Ethiopian Gete Wami, the 2007 world marathon majors champion.
Ndereba edged Zhou in a sprint finish for her second Olympic silver medal in Beijing after Dita broke away soon after halfway to eventually win by 22 seconds in a time of 2:26.44, more than five seconds off her personal best of 2:21.30 set in 2005 in Chicago.
Her coach, and former husband, Valeriu Tomescu said they set aside this year for recovery from the post-Olympic circus. "I think by autumn or early next year, she's going to be doing fairly good again," he said. "It's getting back a little bit every month."
Only two months after Beijing, Dita finished fourth in Chicago. She has since taken part in two road relays in Japan and a 15km race in Melbourne.
She will compete in the four-mile Steamboat Classic in Illinois in June before the world championships in Berlin two months later.
"As I get older, I must change my training programme a little bit because it is harder to recover well," added Dita. "Now I am not like when I was 25 or 27, had more power and said, 'I can do everything'."
She was reluctant to say when she would quit the sport and admitted it would be "very hard" at the 2012 London Games to become the first woman to win back-to-back Olympic marathons. "There will be younger girls who have more power and recover faster," said Dita who was 20th in her Olympic debut in Athens in 2004. "This is my problem."
Tomescu pointed out that Russian Lyudmila Petrova, at the age of 40, came second behind Radcliffe in last year's New York marathon. "Like Dita is a model for younger ones, Petrova has become an example for us," he said.
Of a possible golden repeat in London in 2012, Tomescu said, "If you look at the history of world championship and Olympic marathons, there have been marathons won by strategy.
"What happened in Beijing was the same thing. So you never know."
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