Kenya Bags First Gold Medal In Oregon

Two-time Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon clinched  Kenya’s first gold medal at the World Athletics Championships when she won the women’s 1500m final.

Kipyegon clocked 3min 52.96sec to finish ahead of Ethiopia’s Gudaf  Tsegay of Ethiopia claimed silver in (3:54.52) and Britain’s Laura Muir (3:55.28) in second and third respectively.

Kipyegon surged forward from the start and went on to provide a mouth watering performance and held on to beat Tseday.

On her part, Tseday, the world bronze medalist, started rather sluggishly and at one point seemed to be running out of steam as all the other runners put on the nitro-burners in the last lap.

However, the Ethiopians summoned all her strength to push past Muir just when it seemed the Briton would be taking silver.

Kipyegon had lost to Sifan Hassan in the 1500m at the Doha 2019 World championships but has been the dominant force since. Her ability to take up a position and then deploy her explosive finishing speed makes her a lethal opponent.

Kenya now sits third on the medal standings with a total of six medals with USA toping the log with 16 then Ethiopia coming third collecting three gold, making their tally to six medals.

The country anticipates more medals from the likes of the Olympic champion Emmanuel Korir in the 800metres and Abel Kipsang in men’s 1500metres also expected to make Kenya proud among other athletes in the Kenyan team.