News27 Sep 2007


Kiplagat to defend World Road Running title in Udine

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Lornah Kiplagat in action at the 2006 IAAF Road Running Championships in Debrecen (© Getty Images)

Back to full fitness, Lornah Kiplagat will defend her title at the IAAF World Road Running Championships in Udine, Italy on 14 October 2007.

A calf injury sustained in May sidelined the 33-year-old Dutchwoman from the IAAF World Championships in Osaka last month, where she had hoped to compete in the 10,000m.

Kiplagat had a sensational follow-up to her title in Debrecen last year, where she broke the World record for 20 kilometres, running 1:03:21. The following March, Kiplagat returned to her native Kenyan soil and produced an emphatic victory in the steamy conditions in Mombasa to take the World crown at the World Cross Country Championships. In the Indian Ocean coastal city, Kiplagat beat defending champion Tirunesh Dibaba by a massive 24 seconds in a brilliant near gun-to-tape performance.

Her run in Debrecen nearly a year ago was the first World title for Kiplagat, and after knocking five seconds from Paula Radcliffe’s previous World record, she left the Hungarian city a cool $80,000 richer.

After a fifth place finish at the Flora London Marathon in April, Kiplagat won her fourth title at the Circle of Friends New York Mini 10-K in early June in another gun-to-tape performance, but a month later a calf strain kept her from finishing the Asics British 10-K London Run. Kiplagat is scheduled to race on 7 October at a 10km race in Utrecht, Netherlands, as her final tune-up to Udine.

Bob Ramsak and Wim van Hemert for the IAAF

 

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