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.
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