Photo of Deena Kastor by Victah Sailer

In a Runner's World poll of 31 marathon experts, all but one has picked Deena Kastor as the likely winner in the USA Women's Marathon Trials that will take place in downtown Boston on Sunday, April 20. And the lone-wolf expert picked Kastor for a second-place finish, which would be good enough to send her to another Olympic Marathon. Kastor won the bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympic Marathon, and would like to move up a couple of spots in Beijing. She scored 277 out of a possible 279 points in our poll.

Kate O'Neill was the clear second-place choice of our experts despite the fact that her marathon PR, 2:36:15, makes her only the ninth-fastest qualified marathoner in the field of the field of expected starters. (Colleen DeReuck and Marla Runyan are not expected to start.) O'Neill recorded that time last October in the super-hot/humid LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. In January, she ran an impressive 1:11:57 to win the USA half-marathon championship. She also represented the USA as a 10,000-meter Olympian in the 2004 Athens Games, and racked up 165 points in our poll.

The race for the third spot on the women's Olympic Marathon team will be a tight one, according to the experts polled by Runner's World, with Blake Russell and Elva Dryer scoring 102 and 98 points respectively. Russell led the 2004 Marathon Trials by a big margin for many miles but then faded to fourth in 2:30:32. She also has impressive track credentials with 5000 and 10,000-meter bests of 15:10.58 and 31:35.25.