Sunday, August 28, 2011

High Hopes for Team Kenya in Daegu World Championships


This week, the world’s best athletes converge in the city of Daegu, South Korea for the 13th edition of the World Athletics Championships, the stage is set for yet another scintillating week of enthralling performances and hopefully, some show-stopping individuals who will rise to the occasion.

This current Kenyan team is capable of exceeding the memorable performances which marked the last time the world championships were held in Asia five years ago. Asia indeed has been good to us with very successful campaigns in the Olympics and World Championships in which we have participated in that continent.

The national team, made up of a mix of experienced performers and fresh faced youngsters, looks set to improve on Berlin 2009’s great medal tally with some real prospects of winning.

Already the women’s marathon team has completed an historic 1-2-3 sweep of the medals led by Edna Kiplagat, Prisca Jeptoo and Sharon Cherop making a tremendous improvement from Berlin 2009 where they only got 10th place. What a fantastic achievement by our ladies in the marathon!

This is a great start to the championships and will undoubtedly spur the rest of the team to shoot for the podium places as the competition unfolds.  With hot favorites David Rudisha and Micah Chemos who have already begun their campaigns with relative comfort through the first rounds yesterday, expectations of fans of our athletes in those events are high.

The men’s 10,000m today should be an interesting one. We have a fairly strong Kenyan team that could challenge for a medal but it would take an incredibly and even lifetime type performance to bag the gold in light of the strong competition in the event.

However, expect some surprises. As with any championships, they provide the opportunity for someone’s moment to shine. Interestingly, our women could win gold in events our men won’t. The Kenyan quality in the women’s 5000m and 10,000m is top notch and are set to defend their titles from Berlin.

 I’m expecting a gutsy individual gold medal performance from the women in the middle distances. My dark horse picks for these championships are the 1500m runners. I believe they are suitably motivated and prepared to bring home the gold in this event for the first time in the history of the world championships for Kenya.

Medal predictions are tough to make as always but I’m making a safe bet of 6 gold medals. Anything less will be a disappointment as I feel that the team can achieve much more.

Regardless of their performance in Daegu, let us all support our national team as they elicit a tremendous amount of national pride and patriotism when they take on the rest of the world.