New York, NY - For the first time since the days of Bill Rodgers and Alberto Salazar, there are a number of American men who have a realistic chanced to do well in the ING New York City Marathon (Sun 7 Nov).

No, they're not about to blow away the Kenyans and other Africans who are expected to again dominate the 35th running of the race, but there is at least a possibility that any one of four Americans could finish in the top 10 - which has happened exactly once in the last 10 years.

That was in 2002, when Mebratom Keflezighi finished ninth in 2:13:31, more than five minutes behind winner Rogers Rop of Kenya. That was Keflezighi's first marathon; since then he has improved his PB to 2:10.03 in the 2003 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, and his status in the distance-running world with a second place in the Athens Olympic marathon behind Stefano Baldini of Italy.

And on Sunday, only 10 weeks to the day after that Athens race, Keflezighi will be running here. Early in September, when he was asked about the somewhat brief interval between the two major marathons, he told the New York Times, "My body feels great, so I'm not worried about it. I'm in shape." That was at the end of his brief post-Olympic layoff; next day he went back into heavy training at altitude for Sunday's race and hasn't been saying much since.

As with his Olympic race, Keflezighi will be in the lead bunch or close to it for most of this one. His racing style doesn't include coming from far off the pace. In Athens he was in the group pursuing Vanderlei de Lima in the last half of the race - and in fact he was the one who said, "Let's go get him" to Baldini and Paul Tergat when they picked up the pace shortly after 30km and began cutting into the Brazilian's lead.

In addition to Keflezighi, his Olympic teammates Dan Browne and Abdi Abdirahman are also entered here. Browne, a 2:11.35 marathoner, competed in Athens in both the 10,000, where he finished 12th in 28:14.53, and the marathon, where he was 65th in 2:27:17. He won't have to worry about the Athens heat on Sunday, though; the forecast is for 10-15 degrees C, ideal for marathoning.

Two-time Olympic 10,000-metre finalist Abdirahman will be running his first marathon, coming off a disappointing 15th place in the Athens 10,000m. But his low-knee-lift running style (it's almost no-knee-lift) looks like it could save him a lot of energy over 42.195 km, and he might be capable of surprising a few people.

Lastly, there is a sentimental American favorite: at age 34, Bob Kennedy is finally making his long-awaited marathon debut. With his 15 years of racing at or near the top, Kennedy, the American record holder at 3000 metres (7:30.48) and 5000 (12:58.21) has become almost a folk hero to an entire generation of American distance runners. He has had a run of unlucky injuries over the last four years, but says he is healthy again.

Since the Olympic Trials in July, Kennedy has been training with well- known marathon coach Dieter Hogen in Boulder, Colorado, along with 2004 Boston winner Timothy Cherigat of Kenya and John Yuda of Tanzania, both of whom are among the favourites for Sunday's race. Their workouts include plenty of 30km hard runs at 2500 metres of altitude in the Rocky Mountains.

Training for the marathon is vastly different from anything he has ever done, Kennedy told a teleconference, as quoted by Mike Sandrock in the Boulder Daily Camera. "It's the volume, and the altitude. We do a lot of running up very high and we stack things very close together. Your body has to hold up, and that's the whole point.

"It's a 26.2-mile race, and you have to prepare for that as best you can."