NAIROBI, Kenya, June 26 – Linet Masai and Lineth Chepkirui will represent Kenya in the 10,000m at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin.
Masai dominated the race in the latter stages to finish the grueling event in a time of 32:39:30.
“I feel very proud to be representing my country in the world championships,” said Masai who was running for Kenya Police.
Masai justified her tag as one of the favourites for the race after she broke from the rest of the competition after five laps and is looking forward to her duel with Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba.
“I don’t know how she (Dibaba) is training now but I’m sure she is training very hard so it’s going to be hard,” said Masai.
Lineth Chepkirui finished crossed the finish line in a time of 32:57:30 despite not having trained a lot for the race due to sore ankle.
“I’m very happy. I injured my ankle in Kigari and it became worse when I started training for the trials but the physio worked on it and I’m happy with what happened today,” said Chepkirui.
Chepkirui is confident that her ankle will recover fully for the world championships in a month’s time.
“I’m not running any other race before the championships and I believe the Athletics Kenya (AK) physios will do a good job on it,” said Chepkirui.
A third runner will be chosen as a wild card to back up Masai and Chepkirui in the German capital.
The men’s 10,000m final will be held on Saturday morning where Linet’s elder brother Moses and Micah Kogo will headline the event.
Also in the mix for the plane ticket to Germany include national cross country team captain Mark Kiptoo, junior world cross country silver medalist Leonard Komon, Josephat Menjo and Bernard Kipyegon.
