Korir boosts Worlds quest with 44.67 seconds dash in 400m

US-based Kenyan athlete Emmanuel Korir. [Internet]

 

Little-known US-based Emmanuel Korir longs to make Kenya’s squad to the 16th IAAF World Athletics Championships set for London on August 4-12.

It’s quite a huge dream. But he can if his 44.67 mark he posted in 400m at The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) meeting last Sunday is anything to go by. NCAA regulates athletes from 1,281 institutions in USA.

Korir, the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) freshman, longs will line up in 800m against two-lap race exponents in world record holder David Rudisha, former world junior champion Alfred Kipketer and Ferguson Rotich, the 2016 IAAF Diamond League Trophy winner.

On Sunday, under windy conditions at the UTEP Invitational meet, Korir emerged the national indoor 400m champion.

Competing in 400m in his second-best event, Korir ran a Kidd Field record 44.67 seconds that ranks as the fastest time in the NCAA this season by a bunch, the second fastest in the world and the second best in UTEP history, 0.09 off Miner legend Bert Cameron’s 36-year-old school mark.

“I was not expecting it to be that fast because of the wind,” said Korir, who ran 0.62 seconds faster than the next best time in the NCAA this year, in an event he won’t contest at the national trials in Kenya.

His coach Paul Ereng, the 1988 Seoul Olympics 800m champion, said: “I thought he’d run, maybe, 45.8,” said Ereng, which is actually slower than what UTEP’s “other” 800 runner, Michael Saruni, ran in a blazing second-place time of 45.67. [Jonathan Komen]

“I didn’t expect this with that wind. He’s an 800m guy, he’s the national champion, but he’s a big talent.

“He’s a big talent, a big talent. No 800m runners break 45 seconds, the best 800 runners in the world run 45.5. He’s running 44 out of blocks.

“This is a freshman in a simple afternoon race,” Ereng said.

Korir, who ran a 44.2 split in a 4x400 relay last week (a relay leg with a running start is at least .6 faster than a race out of starting blocks) when he started conservatively, then powered past Saruni around the back turn. At that point he hit a gear few others have.

When he reached the line all eyes turned to the scoreboard, and when the time flashed the crowd burst into sustained whoops. As Ereng indicated, that’s a 400m time only the most elite world class 800 runners can match.