Kenyans claim first gold medal in athletics at championship

IN HUYE, RWANDA

Kenya on Thursday bagged its first gold medal at this year’s East Africa secondary school games after Valentine Mateiko led a one-two Kenyan finish in girls’ 5,000m at the University of Rwanda grounds.

Mateiko timed 16min, 34.8sec for victory, four minutes slower than her time of 16:30.2 in last year’s games in Dar es Salaam. Kenya’s Gladys Kipkoech finished second in 16:48.2 ahead of Uganda’s Hadija Chemutai (16:51.6).

“The hot conditions and the running surface made the race more difficult and I could not lower my time from last year. Nonetheless I am happy to have retained my title,” Mateiko said.

The runners keeping together until the last two laps when the two Kenyans and Chemutai broke off from the rest of the pack. With about 400m to go, Mateiko surged forward and opened a big gap between her and the chasing pack as she raced towards the finish line. The Form Three student at Moi Girls Kaptam will on Friday seek to defend her 3,000m title where she also holds the record (04:25.2) set in Tanzania last year.

It was however a disappointing outing for the Kenyan boys in the 10,000m as Burundi’s Nzikininkunda Oneshpore took gold. Kenyan champion Andrew Lorot was the pre-race favourite but he was overtaken in the final lap by the Burundian who came home in 31min,38.5secs ahead of Lorot who took silver, with Mathew Kimeli (32:09.9) claiming bronze.

Lorot, who clocked 31:50.4, attributed his failure to win the gold medal to the hot conditions and also breaking off too early which eventually worked against him.

Last year’s winner and record-holder Alfred Barkach will team up with Lorot in the 5,000m race set for this morning after the former opted out of Thursday’s 10,000m race.

Kenya also won silver in girls’ shot put through Maxmilla Imali, who finished on 9.57 metres.