Tue Mar 1, 2016 7:35pm GMT
March 1 (Reuters) - Half Marathon record holder Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea has joined Britain's Mo Farah and Kenya's reigning champion Geoffrey Kamworor in an elite field for the world championships in Cardiff on March 26.
Tadese, 34, has held the record of 58 minutes 23 seconds since March 2010 and will be chasing his 14th world Half Marathon championship medal in a career haul that includes six golds.
The Eritrean won four successive individual titles between 2006 and 2009 and took a fifth in 2012.
Five Eritrean runners finished in the top 10 in Copenhagen two years ago and their team for Cardiff will include Nguse Amlosom, who was fifth, and Samsom Gebreyohannes, who was eighth, as well as Tadese.
Kamworor is hoping to join Tadese and Kenya's Paul Tergat as only the third man to win back-to-back Half Marathon titles, and is also eyeing the Eritrean's record on the streets of the Welsh city.
Kenya will also be looking to Bedan Karoki, silver medallist at the 2015 world cross country championships, who is unbeaten in four Half Marathons.
Farah, the double Olympic 5,000 and 10,000 metres champion who is expected to defend his titles in Rio in August, is aiming to become the first British male runner to win the world Half Marathon title since the event started in 1992. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)
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