Golden double: Nyairera, Kiplimo strike gold in 800m and 1,500 at World Junior event

Margaret Nyairera Wambui of Kenya celebrates winning the 800m final during day three of the IAAF World Junior Championships at Hayward Field on July 24, 2014 in Eugene, Oregon. Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images/AFP

Kenya moved to the top of the medals table on day three of action at the 15th IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene, Oregonon on Thursday with Jonathan Kiplimo Sawe and Margaret Nyairera Wambui, winning gold medals in the 1,500 and 800 metres races respectively.

Lillian Kasait Rengeruk won silver in the 3,000 metres with Hillary Cheruiyot Ngetich (1,500m) and Valentina Chepkwemoi Mateiko (3,000m) striking bronze to bring Kenya’s tally to eight medals, two gold, two silver and four bronze.

Nyairera ran three seconds faster than her previous lifetime best, which she set in Wednesday’s semifinal, as she won over two laps of the track in 2:00.49.

In her first season of high level competition, the 17-year-old sprinted away from Cuba’s pre-race favourite Sahily Diago, attacking from 70m out, to claim Kenya’s fourth junior title in the women’s 800m but the first one in 12 years.

Kiplimo Sawe dominated the final lap to win the men’s 1,500m at the IAAF Junior World Track & Field Championships at Hayward Field.

awe pulled away from a pack of four on the final curve to pull out a comfortable win, his time a season’s best three minutes. 40.02 seconds. Djibouti’s Abdi Waiss Mouhyadin took second, more than a second behind Sawe.

Hillary Cheruiyot Ngetich of Kenya claimed the bronze.

Iceland’s Anita Hinriksdottir went out astonishingly hard and broke the group into two as she hit the first 200 metres in 27.24 and covered the first lap in a blistering 56.33 as Kenya’s Maximila Imali bowed out of the fight for the medals after falling 150 metres into the race.

The world youth and European junior champion could not sustain her pace and at just before 550 metres Hinriksdottir started to flag badly, before Wambui and Diago closed the five-metre advantage she held and swept past her midway down the back straight.

After covering 600m in 1:27.87, Wambui and Diago continued to battle around the bend before entering the final stretch, where the former proved too strong for the Cuban, crossing the line in the second-fastest winning time in the history of the championships.

Her time of 2:00.49 is also an African youth best.

Diago came home for second in 2:02.11, ahead of Australia’s Georgia Wassall, who came out on top of a duel with her compatriot Georgia Griffith for the bronze medal, stopping the clock in 2:02.71.                                                                                                                  -IAAF.org