Dibaba is beatable over 1,500m, Lagat declares

Despite her stupendous form, Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba is beatable, Kenya’s US-based 1,500 metres star Viola Lagat believes.

Speaking to Sunday Nation Sport this week, Viola said Kenya’s top draw in the 1,500 metres race Faith Chepng’etich is in a class of her own and will be competent enough to help reclaim the title Kenya won in the 2008 Beijing Games through Nancy Jebet Lagat.

Nancy Chepkwemoi is the other runner in the 1,500m race.

Viola finished third at the Eldoret trials to earn a ticket to next month’s Rio Olympic Games, her second appearance for Kenya on the global stage after featuring at last year’s World Championships in Beijing.

A passionate lover of fashion and design, Viola, an alumnus of the Florida State University owes her stellar running career to her brother Bernard Lagat who will be running for USA in Rio.

The record-breaking Lagat will be featuring in a record fifth Olympics after representing Kenya at the 2000 Sydney Games and the 2004 edition in Athens. After changing nationalities in 2004, Lagat ran for the US at the 2008 Games in Beijing and 2012 London Games.

And after featuring for the stars and stripes in the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, Lagat failed to make it to the Beijing edition last year but bounced back to win the US 5,000m trials in Eugene three weeks ago to qualify for a record-breaking fifth Olympics.

He has inspired his sister Viola to take up running and wear the Kenyan colours at the Rio Games.

“My brother Bernard is the one who actually brought me into running because after high school I wasn’t much into running and I just wanted to go to Australia and study,” says the 27-year-old Viola.

“But he told me that if I wanted to have my school fees, I would have to start training and get a scholarship to the US and that’s when I started training and then I was offered a scholarship to the US,” says Viola.

Viola studied at the Kipsirwo Primary School in Nandi County, before joining Itigo Girls High School and later completing her form three and four at St Monica’s in Kitale.

She then landed a track scholarship at Central Arizona Junior College in Arizona, and, two years later, joined the prestigious Florida State University where she did a double major in sociology and nursing.

She believes Kenya can take the game to Genzebe, who stunned the world last year in Monaco with a world record time of three minutes, 50.07 seconds at the Hercules Diamond League meet.

“She is beatable,” Viola said in an interview at the Nation Media Group’s Eldoret offices.

“But I want take things step buy step, focusing on the preliminaries and then the final. But I’m confident Faith is in a different class and we will do our best,” she said.

It will be an emotional family reunion in Rio with Viola looking forward to sharing the Olympic Village with her 41-year-old Bernard.