PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
Kenya's Rudisha poised to reclaim top athlete award
Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Barring a last-minute surge in opposing votes cast, David Rudisha seems to be headed for a back-to-back International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) Athlete of the Year Award.
On the same odds, nothing seems to cloud the fact that Vivian Cheruiyot, also Kenyan, might as well glide home to top honours in year that the crowning of a long athletics career has been achieved in a dramatic style.
Between Rudisha and the unprecedented feat stand two Jamaican sprinters all who have had an equally imperious season and gold medal winners at this year’s World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea.
While odds point to a possible win by Rudisha, the prodigy who has taken middle distance running by storm, voters in the final count will be hard-pressed to decide who, between Usain Bolt, the undisputed world sprint king, and Yohan Blake, who, by default, won the 100m in Daegu after Bolt suffered the ignominy of a false-start on the blocks.
Rudisha, getting accustomed to a choosy professional retinue, has run a disciplined season winning most of the entries he made this year, will carry the hopes that, beside the first Kenyan to win the global diadem at the IAAF black-tie event, he will also be the first to retain it as he stride into 2012 in a grand formation.
He ran a fast one in Rieti and narrowly failed to beat his world record time, returning 1:41.33 only bettered by himself and Wilson Kipketer, now Danish, before padding up to prepare for the coming season.
He has already assured the organisers of the London 2012 Olympics of a sparkling performance and Lord Sebastian Coe, himself an 800m record holder of the yore, is drooling with anticipation that Rudisha will return the small favour of running in Stratford in August and registering a record.
Bolt, despite being eliminated by a technicality in the final of the 100m, has had an unblemished season, coming back emphatically after an injury last year and for all reasons, stands the same chance as Rudisha, though the final vote may go anywhere.
After winning 200m in Daegu and part-playing in the relay for Jamaica, Bolt ran the season’s best at the IAAF Diamond League in Brussels, Belgium, recording a time of 9.76sec.
Blake, the surprise winner after Bolt left the track, was also in the 4x100m Relay team that run the fastest time in history, only ratified by IAAF last week. But it has not been chequered for the 21-year old, Bolt’s training partner.
Blake rounded a memorable season which saw him record his fastest times of the season twice, with an upset win against Bolt in the 200m at the Brussels meet, breasting at the second-fastest time in history – behind Bolt.
Cheruiyot, the double 5,000m and 10,000m winner in Korea has enjoyed a rich vein of form all season and might as well cream it with a win in Monaco this weekend.
Facing an equally modest opposition from antipodean duo of Australia’s Sally Pearson and Valarie Adams of New Zealand, Vivian leaves all in the hands of providence.
In a year that she won all events on the world stage and failing to win in two in her compounded events – the Kenya Cross Country championship and the Edinburgh Cross Country in Scotland, there will be very little reason to stop her carrying the diadem. But the final vote counts and she is third at the moment.
-0- PANA DJ/BOS 8Nov2011
On the same odds, nothing seems to cloud the fact that Vivian Cheruiyot, also Kenyan, might as well glide home to top honours in year that the crowning of a long athletics career has been achieved in a dramatic style.
Between Rudisha and the unprecedented feat stand two Jamaican sprinters all who have had an equally imperious season and gold medal winners at this year’s World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea.
While odds point to a possible win by Rudisha, the prodigy who has taken middle distance running by storm, voters in the final count will be hard-pressed to decide who, between Usain Bolt, the undisputed world sprint king, and Yohan Blake, who, by default, won the 100m in Daegu after Bolt suffered the ignominy of a false-start on the blocks.
Rudisha, getting accustomed to a choosy professional retinue, has run a disciplined season winning most of the entries he made this year, will carry the hopes that, beside the first Kenyan to win the global diadem at the IAAF black-tie event, he will also be the first to retain it as he stride into 2012 in a grand formation.
He ran a fast one in Rieti and narrowly failed to beat his world record time, returning 1:41.33 only bettered by himself and Wilson Kipketer, now Danish, before padding up to prepare for the coming season.
He has already assured the organisers of the London 2012 Olympics of a sparkling performance and Lord Sebastian Coe, himself an 800m record holder of the yore, is drooling with anticipation that Rudisha will return the small favour of running in Stratford in August and registering a record.
Bolt, despite being eliminated by a technicality in the final of the 100m, has had an unblemished season, coming back emphatically after an injury last year and for all reasons, stands the same chance as Rudisha, though the final vote may go anywhere.
After winning 200m in Daegu and part-playing in the relay for Jamaica, Bolt ran the season’s best at the IAAF Diamond League in Brussels, Belgium, recording a time of 9.76sec.
Blake, the surprise winner after Bolt left the track, was also in the 4x100m Relay team that run the fastest time in history, only ratified by IAAF last week. But it has not been chequered for the 21-year old, Bolt’s training partner.
Blake rounded a memorable season which saw him record his fastest times of the season twice, with an upset win against Bolt in the 200m at the Brussels meet, breasting at the second-fastest time in history – behind Bolt.
Cheruiyot, the double 5,000m and 10,000m winner in Korea has enjoyed a rich vein of form all season and might as well cream it with a win in Monaco this weekend.
Facing an equally modest opposition from antipodean duo of Australia’s Sally Pearson and Valarie Adams of New Zealand, Vivian leaves all in the hands of providence.
In a year that she won all events on the world stage and failing to win in two in her compounded events – the Kenya Cross Country championship and the Edinburgh Cross Country in Scotland, there will be very little reason to stop her carrying the diadem. But the final vote counts and she is third at the moment.
-0- PANA DJ/BOS 8Nov2011
