Kiplagat picks baton from Kipsiro
Uganda’s medal hopes will now rest with Kiplagat. PHOTO BY ISMAIL KEZAALA
Athletics. Common consensus is that Uganda’s medal hopes at the 13th IAAF World Championships ended with the withdrawal of Moses Kipsiro. But if there is one man who can prove the observers wrong, it is 3000m steeplechase runner Benjamin Kiplagat
Kampala. If Moses Kipsiro had travelled to Daegu, he would be preparing to fight for his first medal at the World Championships today. The Commonwealth champion had been entered in the 10,000m race, one of the two track finals scheduled for the event’s second day. Unfortunately, the star runner will follow the action on television just like many of his fans, because of both, fitness concerns and threats to his life.
In his absence, Benjamin Kiplagat holds the key if Team Uganda is to return with a medal from the nine-day championship. A former world junior silver medallist, Kiplagat has come so close on several occasions but ended up with nothing at many events as a senior. His challenge has been, and will still be, ending Kenya’s stranglehold on the men’s 3000m steeplechase race. “ have what it takes to win a medal. It’s just that in most cases I have been unlucky,” Kiplagat said before he left Kampala on Thursday.
The 22-year-old starts his quest on Monday with the elimination race. Having failed to go past the first hurdle at the previous edition in Berlin, Kiplagat ought to deploy the best of tactics to make the final. Luckily for him, teammates Jacob Araptany and Simon Ayeko will provide back-up as Uganda rivals Kenya in numbers. Kenya has defending champion Ezekiel Kemboi, Brimin Kipruto and Richard Mateelong, the silver medallist from Berlin, as the podium favourites.
“Kenyans are our biggest stumbling block but we shall find a solution for them,” Ayeko, who beat another group of Kenyans to win gold at the World Military Games in Brazil last month, promised. Uganda has no athlete in action for the opening two days. Meanwhile Oscar Pistorius must run the first leg if he is to take part in the 4x400m relay at the World Championships, athletics’ governing body has said.
The South African will make history in Daegu, South Korea when he becomes the first amputee athlete to compete in the able-bodied worlds. “He must run the first leg to avoid danger to other athletes,” said IAAF head Lamine Diack. Pistorius has carbon fibre prosthetic blades in place of his lower legs. The 24-year-old will also compete in the individual 400m at the meeting, which begun yesterday.
