MUTWIRI MUTUOTA spoke to coach Julius Kirwa on the national cross meet and Kenya’s chance in Amman
QUESTION: Thank you coach for granting us this interview. Give us your overall forecast for the cross-country championships next weekend?
ANSWER: Competition will be very stiff since, for the first time, we will select only six runners in each category (junior women 6km, junior men 8km, senior women 8km and senior men 12km) in the Kenya team for residential training. This is to observe the new IAAF rules on World Cross Country that state six to run and four to score and to avoid any issues arising from team selection.
QUESTION: Athletics Kenya (AK) released selection guidelines, which declared the first four across the line would gain automatic entry in the national team with selectors deciding the remaining two slots. Is this criterion fair and are you comfortable with it?
QUESTION: You have attended a number of cross-country meetings countrywide and you must have an idea of Kenya’s prospects for Amman. Can you share them with us?
ANSWER: From what I witnessed during the national series, institutional and provincial championships, I am proud of the standards shown by the group of athletes who will compete for places in the team. I am confident they will not let us down on Saturday and in Amman. I will comment on the real prospects when the selected team assembles for residential training.
QUESTION: A biggest disappointment in our decorated World Cross history is only one Kenyan female runner (Hellen Chepng’eno 1994) has won the senior women’s individual title. Do you think this could be the year when that undesirable statistic is erased especially with the Ethiopians around?
ANSWER: First, our mission will be to reclaim the team title we lost to Ethiopia in 2001. If we are in that position, then we could also talk of producing an individual winner. I have seen great potential among our female runners in our local series and those based outside the country are in top form. In Jordan, I expect the performance of our senior women to improve.
QUESTION: Has the panel of coaches and AK reached an agreement where the residential training will be based especially in regard to the talk of shifting the team to Taita Taveta from the traditional Kigari Teachers Training College camp in Embu to acclimatise the runners to the scorching conditions in Amman?
ANSWER: We had suggested the idea of training in Taveta but it was dropped due to some technical difficulties. The team will reside at Kigari but since Jordan is hot, we shall not train around the cool Embu area. We have found a place that simulates conditions in Amman where we shall conduct our training.
QUESTION: Unlike previous years, the team will have a longer training period. How is this going to be beneficial to chances of glory?
ANSWER: It will give us more time to sharpen groupings, perseverance and endurance in our runners. These are some of the key things that have been lacking in our team in recent times. It will also give the coaches an opportunity to engrain the runners with tactics. This will lead to improved performances for the team that in turn will see our athletes win individual honours that eluded us last year.
QUESTION: What lessons did you draw from the Edinburgh World Cross Country that will be changed in a coaching perspective to ensure our team racks up glory in Amman?
ANSWER: Our input in the team last year was not to the level we wanted due to the short training period we had in the aftermath of the post-election violence. In Edinburgh, many of our athletes ran using their own methods and team cohesion was lost. With the time we have this year, I believe we shall have more say on our runners and tactics that hopefully will come up with a winning formula.
