NAIROBI, June 3 (Xinhua) — World document holder Brigid Kosgei and the second-fastest marathoner of all time Kelvin Kiptum will spearhead Kenya’s marathon squad for the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
The eye-catching choice within the squad was introduced by Athletics Kenya vice chairman and director for competitions Paul Mutwii on Friday night.
Kiptum, the most recent child on the elite marathon working block, obliterated a gifted discipline to win the 2023 London Marathon in 2:01:25 on April 23, the second-fastest in historical past behind two-time Olympic champion and world document holder Eliud Kipchoge (2:01:09).
This got here barely 4 months after the 23-year-old ran the quickest ever marathon debut in Valencia the place he smashed the course document and posted the fourth-fastest time of two:01:53 on December 4, 2022.
Kiptum shall be joined within the males’s group by Geoffrey Kipsang Kamworor, who has received gold medals on the World Cross Country and World Half Marathon Championships. Kamworor completed fourth ultimately yr’s World Championships in Oregon.
Titus Kipruto, fourth-placed finisher on the 2023 Tokyo Marathon, rounds off the lads’s group, with Commonwealth Games medalist Michael Githae and Timothy Kiplagat, who completed second on the Rotterdam Marathon in April, named as reserves.
Despite failing to complete the London Marathon, Olympics silver medalist Kosgei will lead the ladies’s group as she seeks to bounce again to the rostrum.
Tokyo Marathon champion Rosemary Wanjiru, and Sheila Chepkirui who completed fourth in London additionally made the ladies’s squad, as Kenya seeks to reclaim the title it final received on the 2019 Worlds.
Barcelona Marathon runner-up Sally Chepyego Kaptich and Commonwealth Games silver medalist Margaret Wangari are the reserves of the Kenyan ladies’s group.
The 2023 World Championships will happen in Budapest from August 19 to 27.