Sunday, May 13, 2007

Kenyans Domination Reaches New Level

Happy Mother's Day, mom!

The Kenyans own middle-distance running, that's no secret, but their domination is now becoming nearly absolute. Three middle-distance races were held on the men's side at the Doha Super Grand Prix meet on Friday: the 800m, 1500m and 3000m runs. The Kenyan men accounted for 184 out of 294 possible points in these races.

In the 3000m run the Kenyans, led by Eliud Kipchoge, took 86 out of 102 possible points with 1st, 2nd, 3rd 4th, 6th, and 8th through 12th place finishes. Kipchoge's winning time of 7:33.06 is a world's best for 2007.



In the 1500m run, the Kenyans, led by Augustine Choge, took 60 out of 102 possible points with 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 10th and 11th place finishes. Choge blazed to his win with a world-leading time of 3:31.73. Choge's time answers American Alan Webb's mile world best of 3:51.71 (equiv. to a 1500m time of 3:34.61) with a resounding, "bring it!"

In the 800m run, Wilfred Bungei won in 1:44.44, breaking a nine-year-old meet record in the process. The Kenyan men took 1st, 5th and 6th places, scoring 38 out of a possible 98 points.

On the women's side, the Kenyans took 53 out of a possible 98 points in the 1500m run. Led by Viola Kibiwot Jelegat's 4:05.4, the Kenyan women took 1st, 2nd, 5th, 8th and 9th places.

Click here for the complete results of the Doha Super Grand Prix and you can see the results of other races in which athletes of other countries actually stood a chance.

Here's a new book about training the Kenyan way. It will be released on June 28th. It is available for pre-order from Amazon Books:


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