NAIROBI, Kenya, October 31 – World Under 20 champion for the men’s 5000 metres, Andrew Alamisi, is looking forward to facing the best athletes at Saturday’s Athletics Kenya Cross Country Series in Iten
Alamisi is confident the stiff competition he will face at the third leg of the annual series will bring out the best in him.
“Iten being the home of most Kenyan athletes, I am expecting the competition to be really tough compared to Kapsokwony. Many athletes could not make it to Kapsokwony for the second leg of the series because of the distance but I expect the field to be crowded in Iten where many of them are based,” he said.
Competing in his maiden race in the series, Alamisi won the Under 20 men’s 8km race in Kapsokwony, timing 23:57 ahead of Cornelius Kipkosgei (23:57) and Edwin Elkana (24:09) in second and third respectively.
It was Alamisi’s first race since September when he clocked 13:41.14 to win the world title in Lima, Peru.
Looking ahead to Iten, the Mount Elgon native says he has worked on his Achilles heel, which almost cost him victory in front of home fans in Kapsokwony.
“I have worked hard to improve on my speed and I also feel that my physical fitness has improved since then. However, I don’t want to get ahead of myself but will wait to see what the competition has to offer on Saturday,” he said.
As per Thursday morning (October 31), 611 athletes had registered for the competition with the number expected to reach 1,000.
Athletics Kenya’s (AK) David Leting says this is because Iten is the training base of most long distance runners in Kenya.
“The preparations for the cross country series are 80 per cent done. We are expecting the number of competitors to reach 1000 because most long distance runners come from here (Iten). We saw that many struggled to make it to Machakos and Kapsokwony because of the long distance but this is not the case with Iten,” he said.
Collection of bib numbers continues on Friday, Leting warning that no running numbers will be issued on the day of the competition.
The categories of competition include 2km loop, Under 20 men’s 8km, Under 20 women’s 6km, senior men and women’s 10km.
