Kenya yet to name World Cross Country team

Jan 31, 2017

The multiple winners of the now biennial event are in serious preparations for this year’s race that will be hosted by Uganda.

March 26
World Cross Country Championship
Kololo National Independence grounds
 
Athletics giants Kenya are leaving nothing to chance ahead of the World Cross country.

The multiple winners of the now biennial event are in serious preparations for this year's race that will be hosted by Uganda.

Kenya's build-up intensifies this weekend with the national forces championships. The forces constitute the cream of the country's athletics.

The Kenya Defence Forces, Prisons and Police will select their respective teams for the national championships on Friday and Saturday.

The army will hold their nationals in Thika at Uhuru Gardens while Prisons and Police will have their selection at Ngong Race course.
 
Kenya's final team will be named at the national championship on February 18.
 
It's here that the forces will again be favourites to take the lion's share of Kenya's team to the March 26 world meet in Uganda.
 
Reigning men's world champion Geoffrey Kamworor will be the man to beat at this weekend's Police meet in Ngong.
 
He will be defending the title he won last years after beating team mates Augustine Choge and Asbel Kiprop.
 
Notably missing in the women's event will be Olympic champion cross country star Vivian Cheruiyot.  She recently shifted to road races.
 
Margaret Chelimo, Sheila Chesang and Faith Chepng'etich will be the champions to beat for the trophy in what is expected to be a fierce battle of supremacy in the Service bursting with crème de crème of the elite class.
 
At Uhuru Gardens where Athletics Kenya has been hosting the National Championships, Africa Cross-country Champion Alice Aprot and former World junior champion Mangata Ndiwa will be the soldiers to watch.
 
In an incredible show of dominance, the senior men's team race has been won by Kenya or Ethiopia every year since 1981 in both the short and long races.

These nations have enjoyed a similar strangle-hold on the junior men's races since 1982.

In the senior men's 12 km race, Kenya won the world championships for an astounding 18 years in a row, from 1986 through 2003, a record of unequaled international success.

Likewise on the women's side, only one other nation has won the long team race since 1991: Portugal, in 1994.

These African nations were not quite so dominant in the short races, but they have won every women's junior race since its introduction in 1989.

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