Patrick Makau will compete at the Great Manchester Run on May 20 as he looks to get over the shock of being left out of Kenya's Olympic team.
World marathon record holder Makau will go head-to-head in the 10 kilometre road race with Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, whose world record he broke by 21 seconds at last September's Berlin Marathon.
The 27-year-old missed out on a place at this summer's Games after failing to finish in last month's Virgin London Marathon because of a minor injury, despite having initially been pre-selected for the Olympic team.
"I went to London knowing I was already in the team for the Olympics. I therefore was not going to push myself to finish the marathon," he said.
"Olympics come only once in four years. Ethiopians have been training for it since January. That is a whole seven months. My recovery period (between the London Marathon and the Olympics) is four months, and that is why I wasn't going to run hard in London last month.
"I sacrificed a lot of races since last year for the sake of Olympics, but all that is now down the drain."
