By Mutwiri Mutuota

Home favourite, Vivian Cheruiyot gets the chance to win her maiden African title when she leads the Kenyan trio in the women’s 5,000m final this afternoon.

The 12 and a half lap decider is one of the most anticipated contests of the 17th Safaricom African Athletics Championships, and takes place on a track Cheruiyot, the reigning world champion, has not lost in the past four years.

"Nothing will give me greater joy than to win gold here at home before our fans," said the Berlin gold medallist.

Winning the African title would leave Cheruiyot with only one title missing from her bulging trophy cabinet, the Olympic gold.

Cheruiyot comes to this final as the quickest in the world over the distance with the 14:27.41 recorded at the Paris Diamond League meeting on July 16. This was only her third race after coming out of a foot injury sustained at the World Indoor Championships in Doha.

League Meeting

On her return, she sealed qualification to Nairobi 2010 ahead of all in 15:31.39 (June 26) before winning the 3,000m race at the Lausanne Diamond League meeting in a world leading 8:34.58 (July 8).

World Championships seventh finisher, Iness Chenonge and Esther Chemtai, the star of Bydgoszcz World Cross in March will line up for Kenya alongside the favourite. For Cheruiyot to realise her title aspirations and continue her solo march towards erasing Ethiopians from major honours she has to top a packed field that includes her harshest rival Meseret Defar, the equally explosive runner she supplanted as world champion in Berlin.

Cheruiyot and Defar have met on 13 different occasions since they first clashed at the 2002 World Juniors in Kingston where the Ethiopian won gold with her rival taking bronze.

Their record reads 10-3 in favour of the Ethiopian but Cheruiyot has turned tables in recent meetings, most notably in Berlin and lately, in Lausanne where the 2007 world champion was third.

Defending champion, Meselech Melkamu, who stunned Defar, the 2006 gold medallist, in Addis Ababa is out, but Sintayehu Ejigu and Sule Utura offer the key challenger ample back up in a race where Kenya and Ethiopia will control the medal hunt.

The pole vault women’s final will be first medal event of the day.

Other finals on the cards include the women and men 100m medal races where Nigerians are on course to dominate.