Big battle looms as world, Olympic champions enlist for Kip Keino Classic 

World class throwers comprising Olympic and world champions are coming for the Absa Kip Keino Classic, a World Athletics Continental Gold Tour, on April 20 at the Nyayo National Stadium.

Thomas Röhler, the 2016 Rio Olympic Games javelin champion from Germany, will start his season in Nairobi, a journey that will rekindle memories from his battle with Kenya’s Julius Yego in Rio.

Yego hauled 88.24metres in his first throw to swing into gold medal position as Röhler managed 87.40m to start in silver position during the Rio Olympics javelin final.

The five-time African champion, who was still red-hot from winning the historic 2015 world title in Beijing, would sustain a groin injury in the process, forcing him to exit as the rest battled on.

However, it took the patient Röhler, whom Yego had beaten at the Beijing world event, to usurp Yego’s distance with his fifth and penultimate throw of 90.30m.

“It’s my pleasure to compete against some of the world’s top notch throwers. This also presents a good chance to renew rivalry,” said Yego, the 2014 Commonwealth Games javelin champion.

Yego said that he talked to Röhler three days ago and the Olympic champion is excited not only to compete in Africa for the first time but Nairobi. 

Yego, who managed season’s best 81.74m to settle for silver at the African Games that concluded in Ghana on March 22 this year, said he will be aiming for a better distance come the Kip Keino Classic.

“My target is an Olympic qualifying distance at Kip Keino Classic so that I can avoid the Mathematics of qualifying through world ranking," Yego said. “When one is in good form just throw the farthest and see what the rest will do.”

The 2020 Tokyo Olympic hammer champion Wojciech Nowicki, who is the back-to-back Kip Keino Classic champion, will be hoping to seal a hat-trick. 

Nowicki from Poland settled second on his Kip Keino Classic debut in 2021 where he lost the battle to fellow countryman, the five-time back-to-back world champion, Paweł Fajdek, who is also back this year to reclaim his title.

Fajdek won the world title in 2013 Moscow, 2015 Beijing, 2017 London, 2019 Doha and 2022 Oregon where Nowicki claimed bronze in Moscow, Beijing and London and silver in Oregon and Budapest.  

Things proved tough for Fajdek in Budapest where he managed fourth place.

Nowicki and Fajdek will take on the reigning world champion Ethan Katzberg from Canada, who will be making his first appearance at the Kip Keino Classic.

Three-time Olympic hammer throw champion Anita Wlodarczyk from Poland is back to reclaim her title she lost to Janee’ Kassanavoid from the United States last year. 

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