Augustine Choge, triumphant over 5000m at the 2006 Commonwealth Games (© Getty Images)
Buoyed up by the excellent perfomances of their middle and long distance runners at last week’s 18th Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia, Kenya is increasingly optimistic about its prospects for success next weekend at the 34th IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Fukuoka, Japan (1 – 2 April).
Four members of the squad which travels to Japan for the World Cross Country won medals on the track in Australia, and coaches and runners hope to benefit from this renewed mood of confidence when competition takes place across the terrain of the Fukuoka’s Uminonakamichi Seaside Park, the championship venue. The park has experience in hosting 19 editions of the annual International Cross Country meeting.
Choge, Limo, Ochichi, Wambui
19-year-old Augustine Choge, the reigning World Cross Country junior champion, was the first of a quartet of Kenyans to win medals in Melbourne. His gold medal at 5000m upset the hopes of the local, Craig Mottram, the World Championship bronze medallist from 2005, who finished second. In third place last week came World 5000m champion Benjamin Limo.
Choge and Limo are in the Fukuoka-bound team, where they will mount a twin-pronged attack in the senior men’s short race. The distance makes its last appearance on the programme, as next year with the championships reverting back to one day, both it and the women’s short race will no longer be contested.
Isabella Ochichi, the newly crowned Commonwealth women’s 5000m champion will be a member of the Kenyan women’s 4km team, and with two bronze medals from previous editions of the short race at the World Cross Country must fancy her chances of medalling again, if not taking the title at the fifth time of asking.
Joining Ochichi, who is also the Olympic 5000m silver medallist, on the flight to Fukuoka is Nancy Wambui, who finished second to Lucy Wangui in the Melbourne 10,000m.
Another of the Kenyan team for the World Cross Country was also not far away from a medal in Australia. Joseph Ebuya, one of the junior team for Japan, finished in a respectable fourth position in the 5000m final last week.
Inspired to gain more speed
"This performance (Kenyan team in Melbourne) is certainly good for us. We are inspired and I am personally challenged by the victory of my training partner, Augustine," said Fukuoka bound team-mate Isaac Songok, at the team's training camp in Embu, Kenya.
The national coaching staff of Julius Kirwa, John 'warm up' Mwithiga and David Leting concentrated on the speed work of the tram, which has been widely acknowledged as being part of Kenya's undoing in recent past editions of the World Cross.
"We really worked on this aspect because we have the endurance, but our finishing power has been wanting and I think we have a good team," said Kirwa, the coaches' co-ordinator.
"Contrary to public opinion that the senior women's 8km team is weak, they have greatly improved in camp and those gaps you saw during the trials have been filled," said Kirwa.
In their sights
Kirwa said they will be watching specific people, especially of course Ethiopia’s four-time double champion Kenenisa Bekele and his compatriot Sihine Shileshi, the Qataris led by double World Steeplechase champion Saif Saaeed Shaheen, Uganda’s Boniface Kiprop, and Eritrean Zersenay Tadesse.
"I have detailed my army to keep an eye on them at all times because they are capable of taking off and disappearing completely," said Kirwa. "We won't run from the front, but we shall not be far away from the leaders. This time nobody will be detailed to set the pace because all my runners are of equal in strength," he said.
"Bekele says he knows Kenyan runners well and that he knows how they plan. But this time he will be running against a virtually new team. He had better plan again," continued Kirwa commenting specifically about the men’s long race team.
The senior men's 12km side has John Kibowen, the former double World Cross short race champion, Hosea Macharinyang, who was fourth in the junior men's team last year in France, Simon Kiprop, Martin Mathathi, who was fifth in 10,000m in last year's World Championships in Helsinki, Simon Arusei and Mike Kigen. Of this entire group, only Kiprop has run the long distance at the World Cross, but he finished outside the top-20 in 2004.
Best team title hopes
But of the teams, the coaches' biggest hope is in the senior men's 4km race, where Choge, Limo, Songok, Yusuf Biwott, Edwin Soi and Brimin Kipruto will line up.
They are also confident that the junior women's 6km team and the 4km senior women's team will perform well.
Ochichi and Wambui will be backed by Vivian Cheruiyot, Prisca Jepleting, Beatrice Rutto and Beatrice Chepchumba in the senior women's 4km team.
In the junior team are last year's silver medallist, Veronica Nyaruai, Pauline Korkwang, Mercy Kosgei, Pamela Lisoreng, Gladys Chemweno and Emmy Chepkirui.
In the junior men’s squad, Mangata Ndiwa, the only surviving member of last year's gold medal winning side, will have Ebuya, Muinde Matheka, Ronald Komol and late entrants, Thomas Loriongosiwa and Daniel Gitau, for company.
Alice Chelagat Kimetto, 11th in the 2004 Athens Olympics Marathon, and Mercy Wanjiru Njoroge, gold medallist in 3000m and 3000m Steeplechase at last year's African Junior Championships in Tunisia, are the strongest members
of the senior women’s long race line-up. Others are Faith Chemutai, Ednah Kiplagat, Consolata Chemutai and Evelyne Wambui.
Omulo Okoth (The Standard) for IAAF
