CLASH OF TITANS: Kenyans headline star-studded steeplechase field in Rome gala

USA's Evan Jager and Kenya's Conseslus Kipruto (R) compete in the final of the men's 3,000 metres steeplechase athletics event at the 2015 IAAF World Championships at the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium in Beijing on August 24, 2015. AFP PHOTO / OLIVIER MORIN

One month ago, Jairus Birech announced that during the 2016, he will attack the 3,000m steeplechase world record.

Will the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea be the right occasion to make an attempt to break it at the Rome Olympic Stadium on Thursday?

Birech is the only Kenyan runner not to have won a medal in the Beijing World Championships final, as he finished fourth behind the unbeatable Ezekiel Kemboi, Conseslus Kipruto and Brimin Kipruto. All these four steeplechasers will clash again with an ambitious goal for the Italian leg of the IAAF Diamond League.

Kipruto, who will turn 22 in December, is the youngest of the four runners, but could become a joker in the race. It’s enough to look back to his show during the Rabat race. At the bell, he started to crush Birech and broke away from him. He cleared the water jump like a rocket and started smiling coming off the final bend. He jogged along the final straight cheering the crowd and showing his flashing teeth. He clocked 8:02.77 wasting a chance for a 7:57-7:58 time, well under a barrier that Conseslus has not broken yet.

“I train near Eldoret with a group of young runners of my same age. They always tell me: There is no fun in it. You beat us too easily”, he said at the time of his youth and junior wins. When he was 16 and a half years old, he won the world youth title. When he was 17 years and a half, he won the world junior gold medal in 8:06:10.

At the age of 18 and a half, he won the world silver medal in Moscow and repeated this feat in Beijing. In the mid, he also won a lot of cross country races. Isn’t the 3000m steeplechase race the track counterpart of cross country ?

The world record of 7:53.63 set by Saif Saeed Shaheen, who was previously named Stephen Cherono until he switched allegiance to Qatar, dates back to 2004. The line-up of runners taking part in the Rome race on Thursday raises hope that the world record could be seriously under threat.

The field features Brimin Kipruto, who missed Shaheen’s world record by one hundredth of a second five years ago in the Monte-Carlo Louis II stadium, the new temple of middle-distance running. Thirty-four year-old Kemboi, the sixth fastest runner in history with 7:55.76, is an unbeateable finisher, who won two Olympics gold medals and four world titles.

Birech, the 10th fastest runner in history with 7:58.41, and the happy Kipruto, the youngest runner in the group. The field will feature a total of eight gold, six silver and two bronze medallists at Olympic or World Championships level.

At Italian level, the 3000m steeplechase race at the Rome Olympic Stadium brings back to the memory of Mariano Scartezzini, who improved Giuseppe Gerbi’s fresh Italian record by six seconds in the first edition of the Golden Gala on August 5, 1980 and broke into the top-10 in history at that time.

Seven years later, Francesco Panetta won the world title in 8:08.57 on September 5, 1987 leading an all-European podium, which featured East German Hagen Melzer and Belgian William Van Dijck.

The Italian all-comers record still ranks Paul Kipsiele Koech third in the all-time list. —Agencies