Kenya athletes to return
Kenya's Hellen Onsando Obiri can't hide her joy after winning the final of the women's 5000m at the 2017 IAAF World Championships at the London Stadium in London on August 13, 2017. PHOTO | JEWEL SAMAD | AFP
What you need to know:
- Kenya wound up second overall after bagging 11 medals (five gold, two silver and four bronze) in the just-concluded IAAF World Championships here in London.
- The team is expected back home on Tuesday at 5am from London. The championships, which started 10 days ago, witnessed mixed results in overall, with big champions losing in their specialty.
- Briton Mo Farah took silver in men’s 5,000m behind Ethiopia’s Muktar Edris, while Usain Bolt claimed bronze in men’s 100m final in a race won by American Justin Gatlin.
IN LONDON
Kenya wound up second overall after bagging 11 medals (five gold, two silver and four bronze) in the just-concluded IAAF World Championships here in London.
The team is expected back home on Tuesday at 5am from London. The championships, which started 10 days ago, witnessed mixed results in overall, with big champions losing in their specialty.
Briton Mo Farah took silver in men’s 5,000m behind Ethiopia’s Muktar Edris, while Usain Bolt claimed bronze in men’s 100m final in a race won by American Justin Gatlin.
Kenyans did their best, although they succumbed to stiff competition from other countries in some disciplines. Olympics 1,500m champion Faith Chepng’etich secured gold medal in a highly-contested race that saw her beat Dutch Sifan Hassan and Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba in the last lap.
Afterwards, Chepng’etich said she wanted to win a medal after training hard back at home.
“I trained well knowing that it would be a tough race between me, Dibaba, Sifan and Semenya who was trying her luck in the race. I’m happy I did as I had promised my fans,” said Chepng’etich.
She has now shifted her focus to defending her Commonwealth Games title next year in Gold Coast, Australia. Kenya’s Edna Kiplagat claimed silver medal in women’s marathon behind Bahrain’s Rose Chelimo who got a gold medal.
Afterwards, Kiplagat said Chelimo had employed a strong finishing kick to run away with the gold medal.
She said her race was particularly tough since all the athletes behind her had followed her moves all the way to the 38km mark where they exchanged leads with Chelimo before the Bahrainian athlete outpaced her.
“It was her race. Having beaten her in Boston Marathon in April, she wanted to beat me this time round and I’m happy for her,” she told Nation Sport.
In women’s 5,000m race held on the last day of the championship, Kenya fielded three strong ladies; Olympics silver medallist Hellen Obiri, 2015 Africa Games champion Margaret Cherono and Africa Champion Sheila Chepkirui.
Obiri delivered gold after beating a tough Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia who admitted afterwards that she didn’t have the necessary final kick to win the race.
Obiri said that she followed the advice given to her by Olympics 5,000m champion Vivian Cheruiyot on how to beat Ayana, and it worked well.
“I was going for nothing other than gold medal and I thank my good friend Vivian Cheruiyot who gave a tip on how to beat Ayana. She told me to just run behind her because she has poor finishing kick and it worked for me,” said Obiri.
