THE DIE IS CAST: Strong squads for World 21km and Indoor Games
Athletics
By
JONATHAN KOMEN
| Feb 25, 2016
Geoffrey Kipsang Kamworor will be back for another shot at the title at the 21st IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Cardiff, Wales, on March 26.
Kamworor and Gladys Cherono, the reigning Berlin Marathon winner, will defend their titles on the course near Cardiff University.
Kenya has won 40 gold medals – four times more than their nearest rivals on the all-time medal table Ethiopia, who have nine – since the championship was inaugurated in 1992. They will be odds-on to add to that tally in the Welsh capital. Kamworor, who won the World Cross Country Championships gold medal at the World Cross Country Championships in China last year, will extend his rivalry with silver medalist Bedan Karoki.
Kamworor, who currently lies 10th on the World Half Marathon all-time list with a personal best of 58:54, has already said that Zersenay Tadese’s world record of 58:23 could be in danger in Cardiff.
“We will do our best just as we did in Copenhagen in 2014. With hard work and determination, everything is possible,” said Kamworor.
“I hope to challenge Mo Farah (of Britain) at the Olympics in 10,000m in Brazil. I have learned from the mistakes I made in Beijing. It only takes hard work and determination to beat him,” he said.
Also in the men’s team is 2015 New York Marathon winner Stanley Biwott, who has a personal best of 58:56.
Karoki and Biwott were also the second and third fastest half-marathon runners in the world last year.
In addition to the defending champion Gladys Cherono and 2014 silver medallist Mary Wacera, two former World Half Marathon champions return to the competition: 2009 and 2010 individual gold medallists Mary Keitany and Florence Kiplagat.
Keitany is the former world record-holder with 1:05:50, which remains her personal best on a record-legal course, while Kiplagat improved on that time with successive world records of 1:05:12 and 1:05:09 at the 2014 and 2015 Barcelona Half Marathons.
Completing the team is the in-form Cynthia Limo, who ran a personal best and world-leading time of 1:06:04 to win the RAK Half Marathon last month.
In Copenhagen, Kenyan women swept the top five spots and could repeat the same feat in Cardiff.
Among the officials, and acting as a coach for the women’s team is two-time World Marathon Champion Catherine Ndereba.