Kenya’s Evans Cheruiyot will return to the Chicago Marathon after missing the race since his 2008 triumph due to injury.

Also announced as entrants of the October 9 race were Kenya’s Bernard Kipyego and Dickson Kiptolo Chumba plus Ethiopian men’s stars Bazu Worku, Getu Feleke and Bekana Daba, Ireland’s Martin Fagan and Australia’s Shawn Forest plus Ethiopian women Askale Tafa, Atsede Habtamu Besuye and Belainesh Zemedkun Gebre.

“These athletes round out an elite field that is not only dynamic, but has the potential to attack the record books,” race director Carey Pinkowski said.

“If the weather is good, there could be some reshuffling of not just the Chicago Marathon records, but also the list of all-time fastest certified marathons.”

Cheruiyot won the 2008 Chicago crown in a personal best of 2hrs 6mins 25secs but was sidelined by injuries in 2009 and 2010. He bounced back earlier this year with a runner-up effort at the Dubai Marathon.

Kipyego, runner-up at the 2009 world half-marathon championship, ran 2:07:01 in his full-distance debut at last year’s Rotterdam Marathon and went 1:00:09 earlier this month at the Lille Half-Marathon in France.

Worku has the third-fastest personal best in the field at 2:05:25, behind Kenyan Moses Mosop’s 2:03:06 and American Ryan Hall’s 2:04:58. In 2009, at age 18, he became the fastest-ever teen marathoner at 2:06:16 in Paris, lowering the teen mark a year later in Berlin with his personal best.

Chumba won this year’s Rome Marathon while Feleke, with a best of 2:05:44, set a course record of 2:05:44 last year at Amsterdam.