Kiplagat eyes medal: Kenya target to conquer the World at indoor competition

SOPOT, Poland

Silas Kiplagat during the World Championships in Daegu. He will be running in Sopot, Poland tomorrow at the World Indoor Championships. [PHOTO: FILE/STANDARD]

The World Indoor Championships starts in the Polish city of Sopot tomorrow and focus will be on the Kenya lean squad as it seeks to improve on its past medal haul at the competition.

The men team in last competition in Istanbul, Turkey failed to get a gold medal and the onus rests on two veteran athletes led by former outdoor World silver medallist Silas Kiplagat in 1,500m distance and Augustine Choge over the 3,000m to turn the tables.

The 1,500m competition promises to be one of the most open of the men’s events. All three medal winners from Istanbul two years ago are back again: Morocco’s Abdalaati Iguider, Turkey’s Ilham Tanui Ozbilen and Ethiopia’s Mekonnen Gebremedhin plus Djibouti’s World 800m bronze medallist Ayanleh Souleiman.

Others likely to be in the mix are Mohamed Moustaoui, the Moroccan who heads the 2014 world list with a hand-timed 3:35.0, the Kenyan pair of Bethwell Birgin and Kiplagat plus USA’s Will Leer, the bearded winner of last month’s Wanamaker Mile in a world-leading 3:52.47 for the imperial distance.

Making history

Over to the 3,000m distance, Choge, who won bronze in Turkey behind Bernard Lagat (USA) and compatriot Edwin Soi, will be keen to make amends. A place in the record books, however, beckons for Bernard Lagat. A fourth gold medal in the event would put him one victory ahead of Haile Gebrselassie in the all-time annals of the World Indoor Championships.

The trouble for the 39-year-old US champion is that he faces a formidable rival who just happens to be his junior by 20 years. Ethiopia’s Hagos Gebrhiwet, the world 5,000m silver medallist, has been untouchable on the boards this winter. Fellow Ethiopian Dejen Gebremeskel and USA’s Galen Rupp also have major championship medal pedigree and so there should be an enthralling battle for the medals.

Debut performance

Another Kenyan in the race is former World Junior 1,500m champion Caleb Mwangangi, who is making his debut at the championships. The youngest in the Kenya team, Mwangangi holds outside chance to raffle the feathers.

In the absence of the injured James Dasaolu and Jimmy Vicaut, the emerging young US sprinter Marvin Bracy heads to Sopot bearing the mantle of favourite in the 60m distance. The 20-year-old won the US title at high altitude in Albuquerque in 6.48 and boasts a 6.50 best at sea level, courtesy of his Millrose Games victory.

Other likely contenders include Trell Kimmons, who finished just 0.01 down on Bracy in the US Championships final, St Kitts and Nevis’ Jason Rogers, Qatar’s Femi Ogunode, Jamaican Nesta Carter and Great Britain’s Dwain Chambers, the latter pair respectively second and third in Istanbul two years ago.

Kenya’s focus on the 800m distance will be on Jeremiah Mutai but there will be a re-run of last year’s World Championships with four of the top five finishers from the Moscow final having been entered.

On that occasion, the USA’s Nick Symmonds got closest to Mohammed Aman, the prodigious Ethiopian who will be defending the crown he won as a junior in Istanbul in 2012.

— IAAF