By MUTWIRI MUTUOTA
As this year rolls to an end, the sweet aroma of glory in athletics will be carried on for generations.
Our runners outshone themselves as they set about dominating their sport with abandon.
The Government, Sports Personality of the Year Awards, Athletics Kenya (AK), National Olympics Committee of Kenya and various towns chipped in to lavishly reward the achievements of the nation’s most famed sporting export in a raft of colourful ceremonies.
It is easy to forget the year got off to a whimper when Team Kenya’s representatives at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha returned home without a single gold medal in February.
WORLD CROSS
However, come the March 28 World Cross held in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, the touch paper was ignited as Kenyan runners set off on a commanding display of total dominance over their peers. It is this event where FeverPitch’s year in athletics review begins.
On February 20, AK organised the annual ritual of KCB/IAAF Permit National Cross Country Championships at the Uhuru Gardens venue, having moved the event from its traditional Ngong Racecourse home.
After the scenic garden took a battering, 24 runners were selected to bear the country’s flag where no one, even the most optimistic compatriot, were ready for what ensured when Team Kenya landed in Poland.
JUNIOR SQUAD
On a sunny morning at the Mylcinek Park course, the 6km junior women’s squad, led by 2009 silver winner, Mercy Cherono, Purity Cherotich, Esther Chemutai,
Faith Chepng’etich, Nelly Chebet and Alice Aprot were the first to step to the firing line.
At the end, Cherono, who was smarting from the previous year’s defeat to Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba, took off like a light from the start and turned the race into a procession, coming home in 18:47 for victory.
Cherotich (18:54), Chemutai (18:55) and barefooted Chepng’etich (19:02) closed the top four for the perfect ten score, with Chebet (19:06) and Aprot (19:14) coming in seventh and ninth to ensure all six Kenyans remarkably finished inside the top-ten as they wrapped the team title.
Picking the mantle from their female counterparts, the junior men’s 8km squad repeated the perfect ten score, with Caleb Mwangangi (22:07) doing a Cherono by racing solo from the front to complete a splendid gun to tape victory.
Clement Langat (22:09), Japhet Korir (22:12) and Isaiah ‘Chairman’ Kiplangat (22:24) locked the top-four, securing the team title. Teammates Gideon Kipketer (22:33) and Charles Kibet (22:44) returned eighth and 11th.
With Florence Kiplagat snapping a 14-year title-less streak in the senior women’s 8km long race at the expense of Linet Masai in Amman last year, the latter experienced a bitter taste of Dejavu as little-fancied Emily Chebet (24:19) clipped her at the final metres to become the third Kenyan to bag this gold.
Masai (24:20) was a close second, while Lineth Chepkurui (24:40) and Margaret Wangari (24:42) finished fifth and sixth to deliver the team title. Having last won the World Cross showstopper individual gold in 1999, the remaining six in the men’s 12km senior race were under immense pressure to perform.
Joseph Ebuya heeded the call when he engineered a breakaway in the sixth kilometre and, although Eritrea’s Teklemariam Medhin threatened to spoil the party, Ebuya delivered the title last won by legend Paul Tergat in Belfast by clocking 33:00.
Leonard Komon (fourth, 33:10), Richard Mateelong (sixth, 33:29) and Trials winner, Paul Tanui (seventh, 33:30) ensured the team title.
At the medal awards ceremony, Kenya’s sombre national anthem was played eight times, an unprecedented feat. Next for Team Kenya, was the July 19 to 25 13th IAAF World Junior Championships in Moncton, Canada.
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