Karimi and Mbogo to grace Eastern Athletics Kenya championships

Buenos Aires Marathon champion Lucy Karimi and Elijah Mbogo will be the top athletes at the Eastern region Athletics Kenya (AK) championships, which will be held on Saturday at the Meru Teachers Training College grounds.

Mbogo, who recently won the Lewa Marathon, will be competing in the 10,000m race alongside former Hong Kong Marathon champion Cyprian Kiogora and Maurice Munene, the Mwea 10km road race champion.

Joseph Kinyua, the AK Eastern Region chairman, said arrangements for the championships have been finalised and he expects a big entry as athletes focus on the national championships. The region will pick 30 athletes for the national championships set for Kasarani on July 9-11.

“We have top athletes here, who want to make inroads in the national team. They will start by launching their assault in the regional championship in Meru,” said Kinyua.

In the women’s race, Karimi, who is keen to defend her Buenos Aires title, will be using the event to gauge her preparedness ahead of the September race in Argentina.

However, she will come up against strong challenge from Pauline Njeru, the former national cross country champion.

Njeru, who holds the all-time best time over the 21km race in Poland of 69.06 will also be running at the Birmingham Half Marathon later this month.

The region also has a strong candidate in the sprints races.

Caroline Waiganjo, the national 100m hurdle champion, will be keen to defend her title and try to run within the qualifying standard.

Waiganjo recently competed and won the Kenya Prisons championships as a guest athlete but as she returns home, she will be keen to impress.

She will also compete in the long jump event, having finished second in last year’s national championships.

Kinyua, who is also the team manager for the Kenya team to the World Championships in Beijing China, said they will restrict the number of events athletes will compete in after the national trials set for July 31 to limit the burning out of the stars.

“The trials will come at the end of July and we want to try and limit the number of races the athletes will compete in.

It is important the country performs well in the World Championships,” he said.