TOKYO, Japan, Aug 4 – Following his qualification in the men’s 5000m final at the Tokyo Olympic Games, Kenyan Nicholas Kimeli is determined to end the snowballing misfortunes that have bedevilled the country’s gold in the event over the past 33 years.
Youngster Kimeli, who beat Mohamed Ahmed of Canada and Woody Kincaid of the USA to storm into the final, will be looking to better his World Championships performance in Doha where he finished 8th.
Ngugi was the last Kenyan to lay his hands on the coveted 5000m gold at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, but the gold medal over the distance has since proved elusive with Kenyans playing second fiddle to their Ethiopian race adversaries and Briton’s two-time Olympics champion Mo Farah.
But Kimeli reckons that he has high hopes despite tough opposition anticipated from Ethiopians Milkesa Mengesha and Nibret Melak as well as the Ugandan duo of Joshua Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo not forgetting Canadian Ahmed.
“The Ugandans cannot be taken lightly even after competing in the 10,000m final. They have had enough rest and should hit the ground running in the 5000m final on Friday. But I will fight to the very end. I will try to fight to be among the medalists. It’s my first Olympics so I will strive to give it my best shot,” the 22-year-old remarked.
Kimeli says his semifinal was a very fast race. “The last 200m turned out to be quite a tussle. We tried to team up with my fellow Kenyan runner Daniel Simiyu but unfortunately, he fell off the way after he was tripped, that disrupted our plans and I decided to take it by myself and control the race so that we don’t miss a Kenyan in the finals,” Kimeli, who has a Personal Best of 12:51.78 voiced.
“I controlled about 2000m so in the last lap when the bell rang, there are those guys who tried to attack me, so I upped my game with a lot more pace and I kept going to the finish. I tried my level best to play safe. I was also going to fall but I managed to balance myself.”
Kimeli says the humidity was really high adding that after two laps they had already started sweating.
Kenya will only have one athlete heading into the final on Friday, after Simuyu’s appeal was rejected. He finished 10th while the third Kenyan in the race Samuel Masai did not start after picking up an injury during training in Tokyo.
–Alex Isaboke is reporting from Tokyo, Japan
