by Larry Eder
Virginia Nyamubura wins Doha steeple! photo by PhotoRun.net
I was surprised to see Virginia Nyamubra outkick Hiwot Ayalew, in the Doha steeplechase. As is his way of operating, Justin Lagat, our voice from Kenya, found Virginia and spoke with her recently.
Virginia is racing in Rome tomorrow! More to come on this steepelchase phenom who dropped 32 seconds from her PB.
“I was really surprised! Even if you saw the pictures which they took after my win, you can see how surprised I was,” said Nyambura.
In her own words when I met her in Eldoret a week and one day later after her Doha Diamond League victory, she never thought, going into the race, that there was any possibility of her winning the event. “There were the two strong Ethiopians who had the fastest times in the race. Then, there were also the other strong Kenyans, Lydia Chepkurui and Purity Kirui, who also had a lot of experience in this event,” she said.
Virginia Nyambura, photo by PhotoRun.net
The idea to finish the Doha race was from her coach, Alex Sang, who had expressed confidence in her, during their training, and just wanted her to finish the race and use the opportunity to try registering a qualifying time for the world championships; which she did by running a world leading time of 9:21.51 and winning the race in the process!
“I had been asked by the organizers to pace up to 1600m, but I requested to do it until 2000m. My coach had told me that there was no rule violation if I finished pacing, move out of the inside lanes to conveniently allow the leading pack to pass and then getting back into the race with them from behind,” said Nyambura.
Even though she had no surety of winning here, the fact that she has been training with her mentor, Milcah Chemos under the same coach for a while now, comparing herself with her in their workouts and hearing from the Olympic Champion herself that she believed in her gave her some confidence that she would get the qualifying time for the world championships. It is the wish of both of them to make the Kenyan team to represent the country this year at the world championships in Beijing. “Milcah Chemos has been like a family to me in the way she guides and wants the best for me,” she said.
She will be running her next big race at the Rome Diamond League on 4th June after her status suddenly changed and her plans to pace in other upcoming races had to be cancelled. Like many of her new fans, she is now eagerly waiting to see how she will fare in a race where she will be running for the first time, not as a pace maker, but as one of the elite athletes in the race.
RunBlogRun had caught up with her after she had finished running a competitive 1500m race that had Mercy Cherono and Agnes Jebet in it, as a shape up to the upcoming competition in Rome. This was during the last meeting of the Safaricom AK track and field series which also served as an occasion to re-open the newly refurbished Kipchoge Stadium in Eldoret.
A tired victor, photo by PhotoRun.net
With many local athletes looking forward to testing the new tartan track, the officials doing the registrations had a hard time given the numbers that turned up to participate in the track events. The men’s 5000m race alone had two hundred and ten participants, the 10,000m event had one hundred and forty eight while the 800m had one hundred and sixty. The number of fans too that turned up was very impressive with many of them expressing their wish that the nationals and the trials will be done here in Eldoret this year.
There were so many high profile athletes participating in all the events making it hard to name them all. For example, in the men’s 10,000m were Uganda’s Olympic champion, Stephen Kiprotich; second fastest man in marathon, Geoffrey Mutai; Mathew Kisorio and Levy Matebo among others.
Asbel Kiprop ran sensationally in the high altitude venue to set a new meeting record of 3:36.09 in the men’s 1500m race in the first heat breaking the old record of 3:37.42 set by Nixon Chepseba in 2010. But, he did not turn up for the finals the following day because he already had a flight to catch as he headed out of the country for the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Ostrava.
The next women 3000m SC IAAF Diamond League race will be held in Rome on 4th next month, and all eyes will definitely be on Virginia Nyambura. Will she prove that she is now the new queen of this event?
