Three athletes coached by two-times KPMG Front Street Mile champion James Thie will compete in this evening’s Elite Mile races.

British runners Chloe Anderson and Charlotte Arter will face Heather Kampf, the women’s two-times defending champion from the United States, along with two other former Bermuda Marathon Weekend winners.

Rolanda Bell, of Panama, who won the 10K title in 2012, and American Lauren Hagans, who secured the half-marathon crown last year, are also in the mile race.

Welshman Thie, who won the Mile in 2003 and 2004, and took part in last year’s race, coaches Anderson and Arter.

Anderson has a best mile time of 4min 41.26sec, while Arter’s best is 4:39.88.

Kampf won last year’s elite women’s race in 4:44.89.

In the elite men’s race David Bishop, who is also coached by Thie and has a mile best of 3:56.96, will face Henry Kipsang, of Kenya, Diriba Yigezu, of Ethiopia and Yonas Mebrahtu, of Eritrea.

In a Twitter message yesterday, Thie said: “Good luck to the three Team Thie athletes racing the Bermuda Front Street Mile.”

More than 1,000 competitors had entered this year’s Bermuda Marathon Weekend when online registration closed yesterday. The total stood at 1,045, with the majority of those overseas athletes.

The number of entrants is expected to increase further as late entries for the Bermuda 10K run and walk and Sunday’s marathon will also be accepted today and tomorrow at the race bib number pick-up at Pier 6, on Front Street.

As of yesterday there were 430 registered entrants from Bermuda and 645 from overseas, representing countries as far afield as the US, Canada, South Africa, Britain, France, Ethiopia, Cayman Islands, Mexico, Germany, Zambia, Kenya and Eritrea.

The race weekend starts this evening with the Mile races and Bermuda Triangle Challenge mile race, beginning at 6.45pm.