Cheptegei focused on Guiyang medal

Mar 10, 2015

After beating almost all the best on the continent, Joshua Cheptegei has fast changed his focus to the World Cross Country, where he will be leading Team Uganda to the junior men cross country championships on March 28.

By Norman Katende

After beating  almost all the best on the continent, Joshua Cheptegei has fast changed his focus to the World Cross Country, where he will be leading Team Uganda  to the junior men cross country championships on March 28.


Cheptegei, who won a gold medal in the 10000m, came back Monday afternoon with the team and immediately left to join his other counterparts who are training in Kapkoros for the world event. Africa produces  most of the top junior runners in the cross country category.

"I am not losing focus.  I know I will be meeting the same faces like the ones I met in Oregon and Addis and I am focussing on another gold medal in the junior category," the confident Police and Bugema University runner said after the team arrived from Addis Ababa on Monday evening.

Cheptegei and Stella Chesang, who won a bronze medal in the 5000m are all part of the national cross country team and were given leave to Addis as part of their training programme.  Suzan Aneno also won a bronze in the 800m, while Geoffrey Balimumiti was 6th in the 800m and 1500m, Esther Chebet was 7th in  the 800m and 1500m with  Maureen Banura  also competing in the  100m and 200m events.

"It is going to be a tough competition but I am going to utilise the two weeks I have to  improve my running and get the shape back," said the athlete, who sprinted  to victory after a  cautious race.

Cheptegei is seeking to become the first Ugandan to win an individual gold medal at the World Cross Country championships event.

Individual medals have come from Boniface Kiprop won 2002 Dublin) and two silver medals (2003 Lausanne and 2004 Brussels) and Moses Kibet also won a silver medal in the  junior category while Moses Kipsiro  is the only Ugandan to have won a senior individual medal, after winning a silver (Amman 2009) and a bronze (Bydgoszcz 2010) .

Suzan Aneno, who is not on the cross country team is focusing on qualifying for the World championships in Beijing in August.

"I might have run a 2:10  but my personal best is at 2:04 and I can even improve on that. This is the start of the season," said the runner who is trained by Benjamin Longiross and Abdallah Mohammed.​

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