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Kenya: Kenyans Beaten Hands Down, Korir Finishes 4th
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
2 May 2008
Posted to the web 1 May 2008
Nairobi
Kenyan runners in the 10,000m final were breathing fire at Athletics Kenya (AK) after being taught a master class in distance running by their uncompromising hosts, who ran away with a clean podium sweep on Wednesday night.
At the centre of their anger was the shoddy build-up to the 16th African Athletics Championships as Ethiopia's second class distance runners (they were missing world champion and record holder, Kenenisa Bekele and silver medallist Sileshi Sihine) drew the first blood in the battle for distance honours over their archrivals.
Kenya's main hope in the first final of the continental competition, John Cheruiyot Korir who finished fourth directed criticism at AK, blaming the association for giving the national team a short time to train for such an important event.
"I have never been disappointed like today, I tried my best but they had prepared better than us, we are not happy, Kenyan athletes are not happy, it was very tough! We had only four days to train while the Ethiopians have been in camp for months," a visibly annoyed Korir, who clocked 29:07.33, told reporters.
"Athletics Kenya (AK) knew about this event for the last three years and to give us only four days to train was bad. Ethiopians have known our methods and we should prepare well for them as we can see," the World Military Games 10,000m title holder added.
His compatriot Kiptoo who finished sixth (30:12.10) and suffered further ignominy of being lapped twice by the winner added, "We have been taught a good lesson and AK should wake up. We should train together for longer."
The World Military Games 5,000m champion decried the lack of cohesion among the Kenyans since they had not been given ample time to gel.
Sang, who settled for fifth (29:47.61), cited the harsh weather at the Addis Ababa stadium as contributing to the hiding given by their hosts.
"The rain made conditions tough and the altitude was a problem but we should have trained for it ahead if we had the time," he noted.
Cheered on by a partisan crowd that raised the rafters of a wet, cold and soggy Addis stadium, Ethiopians completed a commanding podium sweep to send their supporters to orbit.
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Former twice world cross senior champion, Gebregziabher Gebremariam, took gold (28:17.11), world cross junior champion, Ibrahim Jeilan silver (28:30.66) as Eshetu Wodimu showed Korir a clean pair of heels in the last 400m to take the bronze in 28:56.36.
With ten laps to go, it was a matter of which green, yellow and white clad runner would get to the tape first, the Kenyan challenge dismissed.
As they did at the Paris 2003 World Championships, the home runners took the early initiative and took turns to push the pace upfront to destroy the Kenyans and by the 12th lap only Korir kept the challengers in it.
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