Glady Cherono, the winner of the Kenya trials, lived up to expectations by bagging the silver medal in the womens 10,000m with a time of 30:45.17. She finished second to Ethiopian legend Tirunesh Dibaba who won in 30:43.35.
Cherono who is a noted road racer and has been the world cross country champion, is a recent convert to track events and at age 30, shehas never competed at the world championships or Olympics.
The second Kenyan in the race was Emily Chebet who finished fourth , narrowly loosing out to Belaynesh Oljira of Ethiopia in a sprint finish. Only three hundreths of a second separated the two.
The race was run at a steady pace with no variation. With four laps to go, there were six runners in the leading pack: Hitomi Niiya of Japan set the pace followed by Dibaba Oljira, Cherono and Chebet. At the bell, Dibaba took off with her typical blast. Cherono followed but no one had an answer for Dibaba.
800m disaster
All 3 Kenyans were eliminated in the semi-finals of the 800m. In the first heat, Ferguson Cheruiyot was disqualified. In the 3rd heat, Anthony Chemut was eliminated when he finished 6th. A third Kenyan , Jeremiah Mutai was eliminated in the first round.
The 800m is an event that Kenya has thoroughly dominated and in which Kenya always gets a medal, often gold at any global event. The poor performance of Kenya this time is therefore a disappointment. But it is not shocking. Injuries to David Rudisha and Alfred Kirwa Yego as well as the inexplicable loss of form by 2012 Olympic bronze medalist, Timothy Kitum, left Kenya with a weakened team.
But with so many Kenyans performing well in youth and junior events in recent years, one would have thought that Kenya would have plenty of talent to replace Rudisha. Where for example is Leonard Kosencha who ran in the 1:44.08 range to win the world youth championships and in the process set a new youth world record ?
