It wasn’t until 1983 that a foreigner (New Zealand’s Rod Dixon) won the men’s title at the New York City Marathon, and no American has won it since. But with the top Yanks competing en masse in this morning’s 40th running of the five-borough race, the chances of a domestic champion have rarely been better.

With the race doubling as the US championships and $40,000 going to the winner, Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi, Brian Sell, Abdi Abdirahman, and 26-mile newbie Jorge Torres all will be in the chase that starts at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and finishes next to the Tavern on the Green.

“We’re going to have a group of guys up in the front,’’ says Abdirahman. “We won’t just be me and Meb or me and Ryan. We’re going to have us a team.’’

The Yanks will need a team if they want to crack what may be the deepest men’s field in the event’s history. Besides Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil, who’s trying to become the first three-time champion since Alberto Salazar in 1982, there’s Jaouad Gharib of Morocco, the two-time world champion and Olympic silver medalist, Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya, the four-time Boston victor, and countryman James Kwambai, the former Boston and Berlin runner-up who ran 2:04:27 in Rotterdam this year. And that’s without former champions Martin Lel and Paul Tergat, who withdrew with leg injuries.

“It’s a very strong group,’’ says Gomes. “I think it’s going to be like a big, big, big race. I think anything can happen.’’

There will be much less uncertainty on the women’s side, where Great Britain’s Paula Radcliffe will be bidding to become the first woman to win four crowns since nine-time winner Grete Waitz of Norway in the ’80s.

Radcliffe, the only woman to achieve the Apple Slam - the marathon, half marathon, 10K, and Fifth Avenue Mile - has won eight of the 10 marathons she’s started (everything but the last two Olympics) and is primed for a big effort after skipping the August World Championships in Berlin while rehabbing from foot surgery.

With the field decimated by the withdrawal of five elite competitors, including two-time victor Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia and Dire Tune of Ethiopia, the top challengers will be Boston champion Salina Kosgei of Kenya and last year’s runner-up, Ludmila Petrova of Russia.

To have any chance of beating Radcliffe, who went wire to wire to win by nearly two minutes last year, they’ll have to stay with her from the gun.

“I would like to run close enough that I can see her running,’’ says Yuri Kano, who’d be the first Japanese winner of either gender here.

No American woman has won this race since Miki Gorman in 1977, and none figures to have a chance today unless Magdalena Lewy Boulet can chop seven minutes off her best time.

But the US males have the potential to win a tactical race.

“It’s all in their mind,’’ says Hendrick Ramaala of South Africa, who won here in 2004 and just missed in 2005. “If they want to win the race they can take it, but it’s very hard. They are not going to get it easy. We are not going to give it to them.’’

Before the Africans began showing up, the Yanks took Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island and everything in between. Bill Rodgers, who will run the last few miles with Frank Shorter today, won four straight times and Salazar three, but none of their countrymen has managed it since.

“I honestly believe that I’m going to win this race, whether it’s tomorrow or a year from now or two years from now or 10 years from now,’’ says Hall, who’s making his debut here. “I believe it’s just a matter of time.’’

John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.