KENYA DOMINATES WORLD CROSS By David Monti (c) 2010 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - used with permission
Athletes
from Kenya dominated today's 38th IAAF World Cross Country
Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, sweeping all four individual and
team titles.
Kenya's party started in the junior races where
both their men's and women's teams racked up perfect 10-point scores by
taking the top four spots in each race. Mercy Cherono, last year's
silver medallist, won the junior women's 6 km individual title, and
teammates Purity Cherotich and Esther Chemtai won the silver and bronze
medals, respectively. Caleb Mwangangi Ndiku, the 2009 IAAF World Youth
Championships silver medalist at 1500m, won the men's junior 8 km title
followed by teammates Clement Kiprono Langat and Japhet Kipyegon Korir.
Emily
Chebet Muge was a surprise winner for Kenya in the women's senior 8 km
race, prevailing over the Race Results Weekly's 2009 Runner of the
Year, Linet Masai in the final sprint by one second. Ethiopia's
Meselech Melkamu got the bronze, and her teammate, three-time World
Cross individual gold medalist Tirunesh Dibaba, finished fourth. The
Kenyan women went 1-2-5-6 to score a scant 14 points and take the team
title. Ethiopia was second with 22 points and the USA, led by national
champion Shalane Flanagan in 12th place, got third with 76 points.
The
Kenyan team faced their strongest opposition in the men's senior 12 km
race, but still came out on top. Joseph Ebuya won the men's individual
title by a relatively comfortable 6 seconds over Teklemariam Medhin of
Eritrea. Uganda's Moses Kipsiro, last year's silver medalist, finished
another four seconds back. Defending champion Gebre Gebremariam, who
was asked by his federation only one week ago to compete, finished
tenth. The Kenyan men scored 20 points to win easily the gold by 26
points over Eritrea. Ethiopia was third with 69 points.
Individual winners in the senior men's and women's races earned $30,000, and the top senior teams received $20,000.
