In the last ten years runners from Ethiopia won the Ljubljana Marathon six times, while runners from Kenya did it four times. The last Slovenian winner was Roman Kejžar in 2001. Kejžar is now the coach of Rok Puhar, currently Slovenia’s best marathon runner: "In the last three years only Puhar has run a marathon with a time below 2:20. In April he had to decide whether he was going to run the Ljubljana Marathon, but he decided for the marathon in Valencia, which will take place on the 2nd of December. The marathon there offers good prizes for personal records. In Ljubljana he will only run the 21 km trail. Primož Kobe planned to run the Ljubljana Marathon and came to me around New Year, but he injured his leg again and so canceled his appearance."

Vujasin has enough of the Kenyan and Ethiopian victories
On Sunday, when the winner of Ljubljana’s 42 km race will already be in his hotel, the fastest Slovenian will be arriving at the finish line. Is it right for the organizers to pay even up to 30 thousand euros to individual excellent African runners (Ethiopia’s Sisay Lemma is this year’s main favourite and holds the 14th best time ever: 2:04:08) and not even care about Slovenia’s runners?
"Foreign runners don’t raise the quality of Slovenian athletics, but it’s all about promoting the city of Ljubljana, which can then boast that it has a marathon where the winner runs under 2:10. OK, that is positive – but what’s in it for me, if ten Kenyans finish before the first Slovenian, who happens to run 2:25? I don’t like watching only the Kenyans and Ethiopians winning," Svetlan Vujasin, a long-time athletics coach (also the former coach of Roman Kejžar) was critical.