TOKYO, Japan, Aug 28 – Team Kenya registered mixed results on Saturday in the ongoing Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games with Felix Kipruto finishing outside the medal bracket in the men’s 1500m-T46 Final while Para-Rower Asiya Mohamed dropped to the classification event.
With Asiya already out of the medal bracket after finishing fifth in the opener on Friday, all focus was on Kipruto where Kenya was seeking to win its first medal in the games after failing to make the podium in the Para-lifting and the men’s 5000m-T11.
However, despite finishing outside the podium Kipruto says he has one more chance in the next edition in Paris before transiting to marathon.
Kipruto, the only Kenyan who competed in the men’s 1500m-T46 Final at the Olympic Stadium, finished sixth in a Personal Best time of 3:59.98 in a race that was won by Iaremchuk Aleksandr from the Russian Olympic Committee who clocked 3:52.08.
Ugandan David Emong who was competing in his second Paralympics after bagging silver in Rio 2016 took bronze this time in a Personal Best time of 3:53.51.
Kipruto, making his debut in the Paralympics says all is not lost as he be going back to the drawing board to work on his finishing kick and be ready for the Paris 2024 Games before he says goodbye to track.
However, heading to the race, Kipruto who comes from an athletics family with his father Wily Kimei winning the 1500m gold at the 1991 All Africa Games, said he would have won a medal today but with 300m to go he was out of gas and he has only himself to blame for not making good calculations.
“My body was responding well from the start but heading to the finish I was out of strength and my right leg could not move. I was struggling, I tried to kick but I was unable. From the start the pace was slow and that was favoring me because I don’t have the finishing power,” Kipruto, who says that his role model is his late father said after the race.
He added, “I am disappointed with today’s position because I wanted a medal but, in a race, there is winning and losing, I concede that there were people who were better than me and I congratulate them.”
The 29-year-old who trains in Nandi County believes that if he had the company of his two training partners Wesley Sang and Stanley Misik, he would have won gold since he would have compatriots to assist him in setting the pace.
“Being alone in the race it was difficult because there’s no one to plan the race with, but if I had my training partners Wesley and Stanly, we could have helped each other. I usually don’t run ahead in the first two laps, I follow Wesley who knows how to control the race, then I come and finish the race in the last 400m,” Kipruto, who was hoping to win a medal in memory of his late father said.
Commenting on the lessons picked from the Tokyo Paralympics, Kipruto said, “I want to go back and prepare well, I have not trained properly, I have never been in training for more than three months, I want to go focus, look for milage and work on endurance, I will go for the second and last Paralympics in Paris come 2024 God willing, then I venture into marathon. I urge the government to support athletes that are approaching national level from grassroot and provide international training facilities as well as setting up academies, that will help,” he urged.
He began able-bodied athletics as a child, but quit the sport following his accident since he was unable to stretch or bend his arm. He took up Para athletics in 2014.
In 2003, he fell from a tree, fracturing his right arm in three places and injuring his right lung. He spent over a month in hospital and required specialist treatment for the resulting pain in his lung.
Kipruto was inspired to begin Para athletics by reading about Kenyan Para athletes Henry Kirwa and Abraham Tarbei.
“I never imagined that I would go back to athletics. It happened by accident that I came across this old newspaper with an article of Henry Kirwa and Abraham Tarbei’s achievements. I wanted to be like them and started practising again.”
Tarbei, a two-time Paralympic Gold medalist from 2008 Beijing Games (1500m-T46 and 5000m-T46), holds the Paralympic Record of 3:50.15 set at the 2012 Games in London.
