Eisa and Alamisi triumph in Lima as all individual medals go to three Eastern African countries in Day 1

Justin Lagat is covering the World Athletics U 20 World Champs for RunBlogRun remotely, this week. This is his first column on the U20 world championships.

Ethiopia’s Medina Eisa, the defending champion, and Kenya’s Andrew Alamisi are the first gold medalists from the Lima 2024 World Under 20 Championships after winning the women’s and men’s 5000m titles, respectively. Australia won gold in the mixed 4x400m relay in 3:19.27, ahead of Poland in 3:20.44 and China in 3:21.27.

The World Athletics Under 20 Championships have always been the perfect platform for introducing future World and Olympic champions. This is one reason we should all remember the names of the emerging stars here. Some reigning Olympic champions, including Armand Mondo Duplantis and Letsile Tebogo, still hold the world U20 championship records.

It was not hard to guess the probable winners in the first track finals on the first day of the championships. While the women’s 5000m race had gone to the fastest on the start list (both in PB and SB times), it had gone to the one with the fastest seasonal best time in the men’s race.

Two Ethiopians in the women’s race immediately took to the front after the gun. 2:57.27 was the time at the first 1000m, as three formed a chasing pack comprising two Kenyans and one Ugandan, but the duo of Eisa Medina, the defending champion, and Mekedes Alemeshete, who had won the women’s 5000m race at the Shanghai Diamond League meeting with a then-world-leading time of 14:36.70 in April, were in a different class from the rest.

Eisa broke away from her teammate with about 1000m to go and won the race in a new championship record of 14:39.71, while Alemeshete followed in 14:57.44.

Behind the Ethiopian runners, there was a different race for the bronze medal between Kenya’s Mercy Chepkemoi and Uganda’s Charity Cherop. The medal eventually went to Cherop after she opened up a gap on her rival on the last lap, running 15:25.02.

Japan’s Natsui sprang to the front at the start of the men’s 5000m final, crossing the 1000m point in 2:45.92, but the gap would be closed before he reached 2000m. The pack, unlike in the women’s race, was still huge.

Even at the bell, there were still six runners: two Ethiopians, two Kenyans, two Ugandans and one Tanzanian, all in contention for the title. Ethiopia’s Adisa Fayisa made the first move at the bell with the pack closely together up to the last 200m.  But Alamisi out-kicked them all with 50m to go to claim his first world title.

It was a close race. Alamisi won the race at 13:41.14, followed by Fayisa at 13:41.56, and Uganda’s Kenneth Kiprop took third at 13:41.73.

Just like the medal table before the day’s final event looked, the top three positions in the women’s 3000m steeplechase heats also showed the three flags from Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya dominating the middle-distance race.

Kenya’s reigning Olympic Champion, Emmanuel Wanyonyi, holds the men’s WU20 record for the 800m event at 1:43.76, and it was a little surprising to have the first Kenyan on the track, Phanuel Koech, fail to get an automatic qualification in the heats of this event. But, fortunately for him, he was already assured of a place in the semi-finals, given that he only needed to be in the top six fastest non-qualifiers, and there would be just four of them trying to run faster than him in the final heat. The other Kenyan, Kelvin Koech, was second in his heat.

Sarah Moraa easily won her heat in the women’s 800m heats because of the mentorship she gets from her training partner, the reigning world champion Mary Moraa.