by Justin LagatJustin Lagat wrote this piece on the events of day 4 of the African Athletics Championships, which seems to have gotten better as it progressed. Complaints on traveling to Asaba, the TV coverage, among other things, abounded on soial media.
Stacy Ndiwa, photo courtesy of Kenyan Daily Star (copyright Kenyan Daily Star)
Stacy Ndiwa wins gold medal in the women’s 10,000m at the ongoing African Athletics Championships
On the fourth day of the African Senior Athletics championships, it seems there was a great improvement in the coverage of the event and even the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) was able to show the evening session live to the Kenyan fans. It is a pity that this is happening just before the last day of the championships.
The women 10,000m final was one of the main events of the evening and was aired live with no interruptions. It was an amazing race that was controlled for the better part of it by Kenya’s Alice Aprot as she exhibited a selfless team spirit that definitely ought to be awarded with a gold medal, in case there was a special category to cater for that.
After the first three laps, the Kenyan trio of Pauline Korikwiang, Stacy Ndiwa and Aprot exchanged the lead at the front taking with them a few other Eastern Africans in a leading pack that kept decreasing until there were only four athletes at the front in the second half of the race. Kenyan fans seemed to be assured of at least two medals already since there was only one Ethiopian in their midst who still showed a possibility of taking one of the podium positions. Aprot kept the pace relentless at the front, often glancing over her shoulders to check on the other two Kenyans behind her and even moving to the outside lane and allowing Korikwiang, who appeared to have started to struggle, to use the inside lane.
With around seven laps to go, Korikwiang who had won the Kenyan national trials suddenly slowed down, came to a stop and moved out of the track. But, this gave the other two Kenyans the freedom to break away from the Ethiopian given that they no longer had to keep waiting on their compatriot to catch up with them. Aprot kept the lead as Ndiwa hung behind her as the gap on the Ethiopian runner kept increasing, to the joy of the Kenyan fans. With one lap to go, Ndiwa overtook Aprot and unleashed a strong finishing kick that the latter could not resist, but could just follow to settle for the silver medal. The triumphant Ndiwa crossed the finish line and fell to the ground momentarily before waking up to take the Kenyan flag from Aprot, who not only paced her, but also brought the flag for her to celebrate the win!
Meanwhile, before the women’s 10,000m final, Elijah Manangoi and Timothy Cheruiyot had easily sailed through to the finals in another one of the most promising races for Kenyans to hope for more medals on the final day tomorrow; the men’s 1500m.
