HUNT FOR MISSING JEWEL: Kiyeng readies for maiden world cross appearance

Hyvin Kiyeng races to victory in the women's 3000m steeplechase finals during the Kenya Police athletics championship at Kasarani stadium on April 22, 2016. [PHOTO:DENNIS OKEYO/STANDARD]

World 3,000m steeplechase champion Hyvin Kiyeng will be making her first appearance at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships.

The other five athletes – Irene Cheptai, Lilian Kasait, Faith Chepngétich, Alice Aprot and Agnes Jebet Tirop – have competed at the biennial showpiece.

And it looks a daunting task for the 24-year-old Kiyeng as she prepares to report to St Marks Teachers’ Training College in Kigari, Embu, tomorrow for the month-long residential camp, ahead of the 42nd IAAF World Cross Country Championships that will be held at the Kololo Ceremonial Grounds in Kampala, Uganda, on March 26.

Cheptai lost to Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba at the 2008 world cross country junior contest and finished seventh at the 2015 World Cross Country championships in Guiyang, China.

Kasait, a fresh graduate in the senior cadre, returns to Kampala after finishing fifth at the 2014 Africa Cross Country before she wound up 10th in the 2016 contest in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

The 22-year-old Chepng’etich has impeccable credentials from the time she won the junior race at the 39th IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Punta Umbria and the photogenic girl from Keringet plots a return to Kampala, where she won the senior title in 2014.

She is best remembered in global cross country circles for finishing fourth while running barefoot in 2010 Bydgoszcz, Poland junior showdown.

Alice Aprot returns to world cross country championships after finishing ninth in 2010 in Bydgoszcz, Poland, where her elder brother Joseph Ebuya reclaimed the men’s 12km crown.

She is the reigning Africa Cross Country champion and returns to Kololo course where she bagged bronze medal in 2014.

But Tirop makes a third appearance at the biennial showpiece having bagged junior silver medal at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, in 2013.

She now returns to Kampala three years after winning the Africa Cross Country title in 2014 before becoming the second youngest ever gold medallist at the 2015 World Cross Country championships in Guiyang, China, after Zola Budd.

The squads’ rich CV’s notwithstanding, Kiyeng is raring to step on the unfamiliar territory and pull a fast one on her opponents.

Kiyeng, a glowing alumni of athletics-rich Singóre Girls in Keiyo North, said: “I had an injury and did not expect to make the team to World Cross Country.

But it’s steadily healing and I hope to give it my best. I have been competing in local cross country meetings.”

Kenya has won six individual senior women’s titles and they will be out to stretch the dominance against hosts Uganda and rivals Ethiopia, who will line up new faces at the flat course in the heart of Kampala.

Mercyline Chelangat, Ruth Chebet, Dorcus Ajok, Doreen Chesang, Doreen Chemutai and Annet Chebet line up for Uganda while Ethiopia have Dera Dida, Belaynesh Oljira, Gebeyanesh Ayele, Zerfe Limenh, Enatnesh Almirew and Sintayehu Lewtegn.