Stage set for Kenyan XC Champs / IAAF Permit Meeting - PREVIEW

News filtering through Kenya’s northern borders will no doubt spur inspired performances at Saturday’s national cross country championships (21) at Nairobi’s well manicured Ngong Racecourse.

The KCB Nairobi Cross which acts as the national trials is an IAAF Cross Country permit meeting.

That Ethiopia’s pocket rocket, Kenenisa Bekele, through injury appears unlikely to defend his senior men’s title at next month’s 37th IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Amman, Jordan, is music to the ears of Kenyan runners who will be making yet another attempt at reclaiming the gold in the 12-kilometre race last won by five-times World champion Paul Tergat 10-years-ago in Belfast.

Further news that Tirunesh Dibaba is also unlikely again because of injury to make her defence of the senior women’s title will also uplift the hopes of Ethiopia’s neighbours and distance running arch-rivals at Saturday’s national championships that will also act as the selection platform for the Kenyan team to the 28 March global championships in the Jordanian capital.

Despite winning the women’s short course four-times through Edith Masai (three times) and Jackline Maranga, Kenya has won the senior women’s gold medal for the long course, now the only existing distance for senior women, just once in the history of the World Cross Country Championhips which date back to 1973 through Hellen Chepng’eno (Budapest, 1994). Although in Lornah Kiplagat, the country also gave birth to the 2007 champion who, however, runs in the orange Dutch singlet.

Foreign talent

Saturday’s championships triple up as an IAAF Permit Meeting with a legion of 27 foreign athletes joining the Kenyans, key among them a dozen Ugandans led by World Junior Championships 3000 Steeplechase silver medallist, Benjamin Kiplagat, who has been drawn in the blue riband senior men’s race.

The talking point in Kenyan athletics has been the graduation of a fresh crop of talent on whose young shoulders the responsibility of bagging the individual and team World XC titles heavily rests.

The transition has seen the likes of Pauline Korikwiang and Linet Masai knocking heavily on the selectors’ doors in the senior women’s race, while Mathew Kisorio, Vincent Kiprop, Mangata Ndiwa and Levy Matebo have all made successful overtures into the seniors’ ranks.

Likewise, there is heightened activity in the junior ranks with the meet-opening junior women’s race, in particular, expected to be a closely-fought battle.

Junior Women’s 6km

The battle lines have been drawn and one athlete in particular is spoiling for a fight.

Comments by Kenya’s head coach Julius Kirwa that World 3000m Youth and Junior champion Mercy Cherono has been burnt out through running in too many races in too short a time are most likely going to draw fire from the Kericho-born, Nairobi-based runner who won the second leg of the second Athletics Kenya among other brilliant results in the season.

“Cherono has run in too many races which might cost her in the trials. She has lost her endurance and she is struggling. But she has it all within her grasp to correct it,” the coach said in the build-up to Saturday’s meet.

Cherono, who struck the 3000m gold at the 2007 World Youth Championships (Ostrava) and 2008 World Junior Championships (Bydgoszcz), will face a major challenge from new kid of the block, Kenya Methodist University Club’s Fridah Kaimuri, winner of Athletics Kenya’s first and third rounds in Machakos and Meru last November.

So hot is Kaimuri’s form that last weekend, she turned up late for the junior women’s race at her Eastern provincial championships, enrolled in the senior women’s race which she won, beating the second placed finisher, Pauline Waruguru, by close to a minute.

Breathing down Cherono’s and Kaimuri’s neck will be back-from-injury World Youth 3000m Steeplechase champion Christine Kambua Muyanga who runs for the Panasonic Club in Japan.

“Kambua has been struggling with an injury and I don’t expect her to do that well,” Kambua’s manager, Stephen Mayaka, says, perhaps seeking to deflect the attention the new sensation will receive at the Ngong Racecourse.

Hilda Chepkemoi of the South Rift team will also be among the front runners. She won the Eldoret and Nyahururu legs of the AK series, placing second in Kisii.

Other challengers include Jackline Chebii, sicth in Edinburgh last year and Irene Chebet Cheptai who struck silver in the Scottish city with Elizabeth Mueni, second behind Kambua in the World Youth Championships’ 3000m race, making the Eastern Province team.

Junior Men’s 8km

Unlike the junior women’s race, the junior men’s 8km competition is not as wide open with Japhet Korir, Lucas Rotich and Titus Mbishei the names on everyone’s lips.

Korir has been slowly building up his resume with victory in the 5000m at last year’s Commonwealth Youth Championships in Pune, India.

Locally, Korir, born on New Year’s Day in 1992, has been, by far, the most consistent runner, dominating the Athletics Kenya series by winning in Kericho, Kisii, Nyahururu and Eldoret.

He will be challenged by Mbishei, running in the Kenya Police colours. Mbishei settled for silver in the 10,000m at the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz but has been struggling to get his form on the Athletics Kenya cross country circuit.

Another young man seeking to put the records straight is Lucas Rotich, Mbishei’s team-mate at the Kenya Police team and bronze medalist in Edinburgh last year.

Rotich, a World Youth 3000m silver medallist, also won the hotly-contested Eldoret Discovery Cross Country Championship last month and, besides Mbishei and Korir, he will come up against other potential national champions, Josephat Bett and Peter Kimeli.

Bett won the high profile Wareng Cross Country Championships in Eldoret and also the Kericho leg of the Athletics Kenya series. Kimeli is a younger brother of World Junior Championships 5000m silver medallist Mathews Kisorio who has graduated to the senior ranks.

Interestingly, Kisorio and Kimeli are following in the footsteps of their father, Some Muge, one of the pioneers of Kenya’s global cross country running and winner of the bronze medal at the 1983 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Gateshead.

“The Nairobi championship will be tough. Everyone will be eying to make the team but I believe, I have the experience my colleagues lack and I’m confident I will make it to the team,” Korir said after qualifying for the nationals.

Senior Women’s 8km

If the electricity generated at local and international meetings that launched the 2009 cross country season is anything to go by, then the senior women’s race at Saturday’s Kenyan trials will be one of the most competitive ever.

An exciting crop of youngsters has broken into the senior ranks and is threatening to sweep the boards on Saturday.

The crop is led by Linet Masai and Pauline Korikwiang both of whom have already graced the podium at previous IAAF World Cross Country Championships in the junior ranks.

They will battle against established seniors, among them defending national champion, Grace Momanyi of the Kenya Police and World Championships 5000m bronze medallist Prisca Jepleting.

On paper, the strongest squad for Saturday’s battle is the Armed Forces line-up headed by Sally Borsosio, Kenya’s first woman World champion (10,000m, Athens,1997). The team also has the experienced trio of Linet Chepkurui, Innes Chenonge and Peninah Arusei.

Korikwiang won the junior women’s gold medal in Fukuoka three years ago and since her move from Eldoret to Nairobi where she joined the G4S Team – that also has Ethiopian legend Haile Gebrselassie on its roster – her career has blossomed.

“I have felt comfortable since I transferred to Nairobi from Eldoret. My coach has done great resuscitating my career which seemed to have hit rock bottom last year…these trials will be special…everyone has a point to prove and this will spice up the challenge,” Korikwiang says.

Masai has had a brilliant early season outing, winning the Edinburgh cross country meeting and is a sure bet for a place in the Kenyan team to Amman.

A gold medallist in the junior race in Mombasa two years ago, Masai is fighting to improve on her bronze medal in the seniors’ race in Edinburgh last year and she hopes to start the road to the gold by dethroning fellow policewoman Grace Momanyi on Saturday. 

Senior Men’s 12km

The news of Bekele’s absence means that Eliud Kipchoge is favourite for the gold medal in Amman, alongside last year’s silver medallist Leonard Patrick Komon.

But the pair has a mountain to climb before setting foot in Amman.

Just as is the case in the senior women’s race, the senior men’s contest will celebrate the graduation of fresh-faced juniors, among them Armed Forces rookie Vincent Kiprop, winner of the tough Armed Forces Championships, who missed most of the last season due to military training.

World Junior Championships 5000m silver medallist Mathews Kisorio, Levy Matebo and 2006 World Cross Country Championships (Fukuoka) junior men’s gold medallist Mangata Ndiwa are also among the frontrunners.

The veterans lined up include Abraham Chebii, short course silver medallist in 2005 (St Etienne-St Galmier), Isaac Songok, former national champion, Gideon Ngatuny, Hoseah Macharinyang, Moses Masai, Martin Irungu Mathathi, Micah Kogo and Moses Mosop, silver medallist in Mombasa.

It will be interesting to see, especially, the performances of Mosop, Songok and Chebii who are all returning from various injuries.

Head coach Julius Kirwa’s comments

It would be interesting to briefly sample the feelings of Kenya’s head coach Julius Kirwa ahead of Saturday’s national championships and IAAF Permit Meeting, below:

Junior Women’s 6km: “Having gone around the Athletics Kenya national cross country series meetings over the last few months, I have seen a great crop of youngsters and I have the confidence we will have a strong Kenyan team.”

Junior Men’s 8km: “We have three athletes – Peter Kimeli, Lucas Rotich and Titus Mbishei – who have international experience having represented Kenya in Edinburgh last year. They should make it to the team although there is an exciting crop of new talent that will challenge them like Alex Oloitiptip, David Bett, among others.”

Senior Women’s 8km: “I’m happy that this time round we stand a very good chance of dominating the senior women’s race in Amman. We have a great crop of runners here and I will make sure I work on the athletes that are presented to me after the national championships.”

Senior Men’s 12km: “It will be fireworks. There are so many athletes in top form and who have experience like Eliud Kipchoge, Martin Irungu Mathathi, Micah Kogo, Moses Masai and Hoseah Macharinyang to mention but a few. It is too close to call.”

Elias Makori for IAAF