Nairobi — World 3000m steeplechase bronze medalist Abraham Kibiwot is amongst elite athletes who will compete within the senior males’s 10km race at this yr’s Sirikwa Basic World Cross Nation Tour on February 3 in Eldoret.
Kibiwot will battle for the highest prize with others, together with the 2018 world half marathon silver medalist Aron Kifle of Eritrea, the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Video games champion Edwin Bett of Kenya and Africa Beneath 20 5000m bronze medalist Vincent Kimaiyo, amongst others.
A wonderful efficiency at Lobo Village would be the good catalyst for a plentiful harvest for the Commonwealth Video games 3000m steeplechase champion who is predicted to symbolize Kenya on the Olympic Video games in Paris in July.
For Bett, the Sirikwa Basic will deliver again fond reminiscences of his final time in Eldoret when he clocked 23:22 to complete second on the Nice Chepsaita Cross Nation Run on the shut of final yr.
Not like Bett, 19-year-old Kimaiyo completed a disappointing sixteenth in the identical race and shall be praying for a greater end result in his subsequent competitors in Eldoret.
One other Kenyan teen hoping to make an announcement within the males’s race is Daniel Kosen who clocked 27:01 to complete third eventually yr’s Valencia Ibercaja 10km race in Spain — in what was his finest efficiency in 2023.
Overseas contingent
Different foreigners who shall be in competition within the males’s race embrace Collins Kgadima and Keaton Stansfeld of South Africa, and Peter Gidoska of Tanzania.
Stansfeld shall be competing within the race for the second time, having completed 62nd in final yr’s race after timing 44:25.
However, 29-year-old Gidoska has already competed on Kenyan soil this yr — on the 2nd Athletics Kenya Monitor and Subject Weekend Assembly on January 5 — the place he completed fifth within the males’s 5000m after clocking 14:18.1.
Girls on type
The women’ race additionally guarantees to be one to observe for, what with the entry of world half marathon bronze medalist Catherine Amanang’ole, 2022 nationwide cross nation champion Grace Loibach and the latest lengthy distance operating sensation — Emmaculate Anyango.
Twenty-three-year-old Anyango continues to show heads along with her glorious performances in cross nation and street races and can be odds-on to proceed her streak of podium finishes at Sirikwa.
She got here to prominence in January final yr when she clinched the ladies’s race on the Discovery Cross Nation Championships earlier than closing 2023 with a win on the Iten leg of the AK Cross Nation Weekend Sequence.
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Anyango started this yr on a bang, clocking a private better of 28:57 to complete second within the girls’s race on the Valencia Ibercaja 10km occasion a fortnight in the past.
Her efficiency in Spain made her the second feminine athlete to run a 10km race in underneath 29 minutes — after Agnes Ngetich who clocked a brand new world document of 28:26 to win the identical occasion.
Going to Sirikwa, Loibach shall be equally motivated by her begin to the yr, following a 3rd place end on the newest leg of the World Cross Nation Tour on the Juan Muguerza Worldwide on January 7.
The 20-year-old flew the nationwide flag eventually yr’s World Cross Nation Championships in Bathurst, Australia and completed fourth within the girls’s race.
Others in the identical race who possess a wealthy pedigree embrace final yr’s runner-up on the Prague Half Marathon, Janet Chepngetich in addition to runner-up on the Dublin Marathon, Joan Kipyatich.
The deadline for registration is early subsequent week with extra athletes anticipated to pen their names.
The classes of competitors comprise senior males’s and ladies’s 10km race, underneath 20 males’s 8km, underneath 20 girls’s 6km, underneath 18 boy’s 5km, underneath 18 women’ 5km and youngsters athletics (girls and boys).