World 5,000m champion Hellen Obiri, who failed to impress at her Worlds 10,000m debut at the ongoing World Championships in Doha returns to the track tonight keen to restore her authority as the queen of 5,000m.
At the 10,000m final won by Dutchwoman Sifan Hassan, Obiri look beaten but returned to 5,000m heats with resounding performance posting the fastest qualifying time of 14:52.13 on Wednesday. The performance will justify Obiri’s hopes of winning gold at the event that starts at 9:25 pm.
In March this year, Obiri became the first woman to win outdoors, indoors and cross country world individual titles at the senior level to emulate Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia during the World country championships in Aarhus, Denmark and would love to close the season with another victory.
Obiri, also the 5,000m Olympics silver medallist, finished fourth at the IAAF Diamond League final in Brussels last month but has the fastest time so far this season, 14:20.36, set in the race at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in London.
The 29-year-old will have the company of her fellow countrywomen Margaret Chelimo and Lilian Kasait who booked their places in the final after finishing third and fourth respectively in heat two which was won by Ethiopia’s Tsehay Gemechu in 15:01.57.
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Chelimo, 26, is also Commonwealth Games silver medallist and will be making her second World Championships final having finished fifth two years ago in London. She has the best time of 14:31.69 and will be out to improve on her last performance.
“We will be ready for either fast or slow final. We have prepared the strategy to hopefully win medals for Kenya,” Chelimo said.
Kasait, at 22, comes into the final with impressive resume having dominated the junior levels and fresh from winning gold at African Games last month in Rabat, Morocco.
With Sifan Hassan who had indicated earlier she will contest the 5,000m but later opted for 1500m and Ethiopia’s world record-holder Genzebe Dibaba, also dropping out of Doha with a foot injury, the Kenyans will still get resistance from other forces.
American Karissa Schweizer who clocked a personal best of 14:52.41 in the heats, Ethiopia’s Hawi Feysa, who timed 14:53.85, and Britain’s Eilish McColgan, who finished in 14:55.79 are some of the finalists to be worried about.
Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen, a member of Nike Oregon Project will be another force after she advanced to the final automatically out of heat 2.
