Team Cheruiyot gears up for virtual race

This week’s virtual Maurie Plant Memorial Race featuring “Team Cheruiyot” from Kenya will be the last event on the cards during “Impossible Games.”

The race will be held starting at 9.40pm on Thursday. It will see “Team Cheruyot” from Kenya  take on “Team Ingebrigtsen” from Norway over 2,000 metres, with “Team Cheruiyot” being stationed at the Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi and their opponents lining up at Bislett Stadium in Oslo, Norway.

The event’s organiser, Bernard Ouma, has said local media and members of the public will not be allowed to cover the race.

Journalists will be provided with video footage and pictures from the event the next day.

Ouma said Norwegian production company, Omega International Production, will exclusively cover the race, having acquired the media rights for the competition, that will also feature other events.

“They (Omega International Production) will share video footage and pictures from the event the following day,” said Ouma, adding the press conference for “Impossible Games” is likely to be held via video link on Thursday from 5pm.

Ouma said the whole session of the “Impossible Games” will take one hour.

“Team Cheruiyot,” led by reigning World 1,500m champion Timothy Cheruiyot, will also feature the 2017 world 1,500m champion Elijah Manang’oi, who is also the reigning Commonwealth champion, Africa Under-18 1,500m champion Vincent Keter, 2012 World Under-20 800m bronze medallist Edwin Melly and Timothy Sein.

“Team Ingebrigtsen” will feature Ingebrigtsen brothers from Norway. They are Jakob who is the European 1,500m and 5,000m champion, Henrik and Filip. They will be joined by two other athletes to make a team of five.

Athletics Kenya executive committee member, Barnaba Korir, who is part of the organising team, said that plans for the race are complete.

“We shall provide all the technical officials and the timing system for the race. We have done several rehearsals with the timing system and everything has gone according to plan,” said Korir, adding that the race will be held to Diamond League standards or to the standard of any other World Athletics competitions.

The race will be held in memory of Maurie Plant, one of the most significant figures in Australian and world athletics. Plant died on January 19 this year.

Plant, who was a manager, organiser and broadcaster, and a towering figure of Australian athletics, mainly behind the scenes, played a big role in the successful careers of Sally Pearson, Catherine Freeman, Steve Hooker, among others.

The race will be broadcast on television internationally as a split screen competition and is named in honour of Plan.

Both teams will start with five runners and will have to finish with three.

The winner of the competition will be the team with the best overall time for the three runners.
Individual times will count as well, and the Ingebrigtsen brothers will have one eye on the European record of 4 inutes, 51.39 seconds held by Briton Steve Cram, who will be commentating during the race.

Several other big names will compete at the Games.

In the pole vault competition, Mondo Duplantis will take on his predecessor and world record-holder Renaud Lavillenie.

World champion Daniel Stahl will compete in the discus, while two-time world 400m hurdles champion Karsten Warholm will attempt to break the world best in the 300m hurdles.

The women’s 300m hurdles will be a three-way clash between European champion Lea Sprunger, Olympic silver medallist Sara Slott Petersen and Norwegian record-holder Amalie Iuel.