•The Kenyan trio will, however, hammer away to fend off a fierce challenge from Ethiopian Lamecha Girma and Moroccan Soufiane El Bakkali.
•Historically, this is a title the Kenyans have defended as if their lives depend on it.
Image: FILE
Defending champion Conseslus Kipruto has vowed to defend his title in the 3000m steeplechase finals at Oregon22 in Eugene tonight.
Kipruto, 28, heads into the race, inspired by his resplendent performance at the 2019 Doha World Championships, where he clocked 8:01.35 for a photo finish, on his way to the gold podium.
This year he has a season-best of 8:08.76, which saw him finish fourth in Rome last month.
He is an athlete accustomed to titles, having clinched gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics as well as the 2017 and 2019 World Championships.
Prior to that, he had bagged the World Youth and the World Junior titles in the steeplechase in 2012.
Kipruto also ranks second on the all-time junior lists with 8:01.16. He set his personal best of 8:00.12 minutes at the Birmingham Diamond League event in 2016. Also plying trade for Team Kenya in the event is Benjamin Kigen, 29, who won bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Besides securing gold at the 2019 All-Africa Games, Kigen won the 3000m SC at the 2018 Prefontaine Classic, beating reigning world champion Conseslus Kipruto and Olympic silver medalist Evan Jager with a 57.89-second in the last lap.
He qualified to represent Kenya at the 2020 Summer Olympics, where he won the bronze medal in the 3000 m steeplechase event. His personal best is 8:05.12 (Monaco 2019).
Abraham Kibiwott, 26, is expected to team up with the duo for the Kenyan onslaught. Kibiwott boasts a bronze at the African Championships in Athletics in 2016. His personal best is 8:09.25 minutes, set in 2016.
In 2015, he clinched gold at the African Junior Athletics Championships, seeing off Ethiopia's reigning Youth Olympic champion Wogene Sebisibe Sidamo in Addis Ababa.
He capped off the season with a personal best of 8:22.10 minutes at the London Diamond League meet, ranking as the second-fastest under-20 athlete that year behind another Kenyan, Nicholas Kiptanui Bett.
Kibiwot made his breakthrough into the senior ranks in the 2016 season and was prominent on the 2016 IAAF Diamond League circuit that year, starting with a personal best of 8:09.25 minutes to place third in Doha.
He moved up to second behind Ezekiel Kemboi in Beijing and won his first race at Athletissima in Lausanne.
Kibiwott is the quickest of that trio this year, clocking 8:06.73 to finish second in Rome, but Kigen – the Olympic bronze medallist in Tokyo – is the best kicker and would be highly dangerous in a slow race.
The Kenyan trio will, however, hammer away to fend off a fierce challenge from Ethiopian Lamecha Girma and Moroccan Soufiane El Bakkali.
Girma, 21, almost ran away with the title in Doha in 2019. The Ethiopian ensured an honest pace in last year’s Olympic final and has shown he can run under eight minutes.
Girma has raced El Bakkali seven times in his career and has only beaten him once – in the 2019 world final and as such, El Bakkali will start as the heavy favourite.
The 26-year-old Moroccan possesses all the attributes needed for success here: proficient hurdling, oceans of endurance, and – critically – a key change of gears in the home straight.
He outkicked Girma in Tokyo last year to win Olympic gold and did the same in Doha and Rabat this year, setting the world leader of 7:58.28 in the latter event.
He's undoubtedly the current superman of the steeplechase, but if there is a kryptonite that could take him down then it’s a fully fit Kipruto.
Kipruto has an 11-8 record against El Bakkali in this event, but it’s worth noting they’ve met five times in championship settings. The current tally? 5-0 to Kipruto.
Historically, this is a title the Kenyans have defended as if their lives depend on it.
Since 1991, and the first of Moses Kiptanui’s three world titles, Kenya has won 13 of the 15 men’s steeplechase gold medals, the two exceptions being 2003 and 2005 when Saif Saeed Shaheen – a Kenyan-born athlete running for Qatar – claimed gold.
Girma will be joined by compatriots Hailemariyam Amare and Getnet Wale. Wale is an 8:05.21 athlete at his best, with a 7:24.98 indoor 3000m to his name. He finished third in Rome earlier this year in 8:06.74 and fourth in both the Olympic final in Tokyo and the 2019 world final in Doha.
Evan Jager — the 2016 Olympic and 2017 World Championships medallist who trains in Portland, a two-hour drive north of Eugene— will be flying the USA flag .
Jager has been through a nightmare run of injuries, but he showed his class and resilience by clocking 8:17.29 to qualify at the US Championships last month, finishing second to Hillary Bor.
Bor was seventh in the Olympic final in 2016 and eighth in the world final in 2019 and with a best this year of 8:12.19.
The European charge will be led by Italy’s Ahmed Abdelwahed, who lowered his PB to 8:10.29 to finish sixth in Rome.
India will root for Avinash Mukund Sable, who lowered his national record to 8:12.48 in Rabat.
The 27-year-old was a silver medallist at the Asian Championships in 2019.