By Mutwiri Mutuota fot THE STANDARDThe showdown billed as one of the most competitive selection event for a Kenyan team to a major track championship is on Saturday at Nyayo National Stadium.
At the end of the day, Athletics Kenya (AK) will fill the remaining pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is the country’s team for the 12th World Championships in Athletics set for Berlin mid next month.
From Kakamega to Rome, Nairobi to Oregon and Ngong Hills to London, thousands of runners have prepared and competed to get in shape for a tilt on wearing the famed red, green and black strip that has come to symbolise global dominance, especially in mid and long distance running.
Everything has been said and written on all key battles expected when the starting gun at noon signals the beginning of the mad rush for Kenyan tickets with some 230 athletes invited to drip sweat in a bid to qualify for Berlin.
Slight concerns about the form of the country’s female runners, ambitions of individual runners and selection criteria addressed at length, but tomorrow all that takes a backseat as a proud athletics nation awaits her latest ambassadors who will carry their flag aloft in the German capital.
After such commanding performances at the last 2007 World Championship in Osaka and last year’s Beijing Olympics, most of the runners that covered the country in a blanket of glory are still active hence the mouth watering prospect of titanic scrambles for the country’s slots at the Nyayo Stadium tartan track.
However, ahead of tomorrow’s Trials the nation should reflect on some of her servants who won honours in Osaka and Beijing that will not compete for Berlin places. The most prominent is Catherine ‘The Great’ Ndereba, reigning world champion and Olympics silver medallist who opted not to defend her women’s title in Berlin after slight injury at April’s London Marathon.
Consistently successful
Ndereba, who first won the world title in 2003 and silver at the next edition, is reputed to be the world’s most consistently successful woman marathon runner.
Olympic fifth finisher, Martha Komu, Helena Kiprop, Irene Lemika and Risper Kimaiyo will attempt to fit in Ndereba’s large marathon shoes in Berlin.
Eunice Jepkorir, the athlete who single-handedly placed the country on the global 3,000m women steeplechase map with bronze in Osaka and silver in Beijing is out for the season.
That leaves Olympics fourth finisher and hot favourite to lead the Kenyan charge in Berlin, Ruth Bosibori, the duty of taking on the might of Russians world and Olympics champions Ekaterina Volkova and Gulnara-Galkina. Osaka bronze winner and 11th in Olympics over 5,000m, Priscah Jepleting, is also out for the season.
After failing at the 10,000m Trials where he finished ninth, Osaka men’s 10,000m champion, Martin Mathathi is out of Berlin while Luke Kibet, the first Kenyan to win World Championships men’s marathon in 20 years, is almost certain of not defending his title in Berlin. AK has named him as a reserve in the men’s marathon squad.
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