Sheila Chelangat, the women’s 10km winner at the seventh edition of the IAAF Silver Label Okpekpe International 10km Road Race held last May tops the list of four women Kenya has listed to compete for the three medals on offer in the 5000m event at the IAAF World Championship which begins in a fortnight in Doha, Qatar.
Chelangat who holds a personal best of 30:55 in the 10km race, faces a herculean task trying to stop compatriot, Helen Obiri from defending the 5000m title she ran 14:34.86 to win two years ago in London.
The reigning Okpekpe champion is yet to break 15 minutes so far this year while Obiri tops the world list for 2019 in the event with the 14:20.36 she ran last July in London.
Chelangat, who holds a personal season’s best of 15:00.61 will not be the only athlete in Doha who has come to Nigeria to run in the historic Okpekpe race, the first IAAF label event in Nigeria nay West Africa and the only silver label race in Africa in 2019.
Fellow Kenyan, Alex Korio who won the men’s 10km title in 2015 in Okpekpe and was fourth this year (29:17), is also in Kenya’s list of athletes that will compete in Doha.
Korio will compete in the men’s 10,000m event with two other Kenyans who have been charged to return Kenya to the podium as world champion since 2001 when Charles Kamathi ran 27:53.25 to give Kenya the gold.
1 Comment
Edo State should stop waiting tax payers money on okpekpe races where people just come from outside of our shores and pick up dollars while our sport area of strength are being neglected. Why don’t we invest that money in school sports in Edo State and produce budding stars that will take the World by storm in the future. Edo State use to turn out football stars for our National teams but today no young footballers from Edo State in our National teams because we have abandoned school sports development. So we should stop waiting our scarce resources on long distance competition that only serve the interest of the Ethopians and kenyans.