World record-holder Haile Gebrselassie will headline next year's Tokyo Marathon after race organizers on Friday named the Ethiopian among invited runners for the Feb. 27 race.
Gebrselassie rewrote his own world record with a time of 2 hours, 3 minutes, 59 seconds at the Berlin Marathon in 2008. He will be racing in his first marathon in Japan since winning the 2006 Fukuoka International Marathon, according to organizers.
A record 335,000 people have applied to take part in next year's Tokyo Marathon, in which 35,000 runners will compete.