Mathew Kipsang is banking on a 1500m sprint to medal in the final of the 5000m in the ongoing World Athletics Championship here in Tokyo, Japan.
Kipsang will be Kenya's sole representative in the men's 5,000m after clocking 13:13.33 to place second in the semi-final Heat One.
The first eight athletes in each heat automatically qualified for the final.
He trailed Kenyan-turned Belgian Isaac Kimeli (13:13.06) with American Cole Hocker placing third in 13:13.41. The other Kenyan in that heat, Jacob Krop, failed to make the cut, placing 14th in 13:28.73.
In the other semi-final, Cornelius Kemboi also failed to sail through, placing 12th in 13:45.79.
In an interview, Kipsang revealed that he only graduated to the 5000m a year ago, and he is already comfortable in his new event.
He hopes to leverage his 1500m kick to deliver a medal in the 5000m.
He said, “As long as I am in the leading pack with 200m to go, it will be difficult to shake me off.”
He, however, predicted a very fast race, saying, “Nowadays 5,000m has become a sprint.”
He said if one doesn’t have endurance and speed in the 5000m, he is definitely out of the game.
Kipsang is encouraged by the fact that he ventured into 5000m the other day, and he is catching up fast with the top men in the event.
Kipsang has a personal best of 12:58 minutes in the 5,000m.
Meanwhile, in the women's javelin qualification Group A, Irene Jepkemboi fell short of the 62.50m qualifying mark for the final.
Jepkemboi launched 56.55m, placing her 13th with Serbia's Adriana Vilagos (66.06m), Australia's Mackenzie Little (65.54m) and Ecuador's Juleisy Angulo (63.25m) claiming the top three spots.
In an interview, she said her biggest undoing was stage fright. “I was very confused, this being my first time on the big stage,”
She added, “I also panicked just looking at how my opponents were doing things."
She promised to put her act together and be back with a bang.
“I have not trained very well because I arrived late in college and I had to do a lot of catch-up.”
However, I have now settled and will soon go to my usual itinerary of shuttling between education and javelin.
She said she is happy with whatever she has achieved and attributed her growth to former world champion and Olympic silver medallist, Julius Yego.
“Yego has encouraged me big time, and I owe my growth to him. Even today, his presence and focus on my progress kept me going,” she added.
Elsewhere, the women’s 800m trio were over the moon after they all made it to the final.
Mary Moraa clocked 1:58.40 to win her heat ahead of Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell (1:58.62) and Italian Eloisa Coiro, who clocked 1:59.19.
Lilian Odira won Heat Two, where she posted 1:56.85, ahead of Switzerland’s Audrey Werro (1:56.99) and Australia’s Jessica Hull (1:57.15). Sarah Moraa placed second in Heat 3 behind Keely Hodgkinson, who won the race in 1:57.53.
They promised they would work hard as a team to deliver glory.
Moraa said she has, for the last three editions, graced the final alone, and it has always been difficult.
She said, "Things will be different as they seek to push each other to medal sweep. I foresee something good,”
Sarah was happy that after an appeal to get to the semi-final, she proved that she was up to the challenge.
“It feels good to be in the final because this is my first global event.”
Sarah twisted her ankle in the preliminaries and was happy to reach the final unscathed.
Odira was also over the moon and promised to deliver as a team.
