Eisa and Alamisi triumph in Lima as all individual medals go to three Eastern African countries in Day 1

Justin Lagat is protecting the World Athletics U 20 World Champs for RunBlogRun remotely, this week. That is his first column on the U20 world championships.

Ethiopia’s Medina Eisa, the defending champion, and Kenya’s Andrew Alamisi are the primary gold medalists from the Lima 2024 World Below 20 Championships after profitable the ladies’s and males’s 5000m titles, respectively. Australia received gold within the combined 4x400m relay in 3:19.27, forward of Poland in 3:20.44 and China in 3:21.27.

The World Athletics Below 20 Championships have all the time been the right platform for introducing future World and Olympic champions. That is one purpose we must always all bear in mind the names of the rising stars right here. Some reigning Olympic champions, together with Armand Mondo Duplantis and Letsile Tebogo, nonetheless maintain the world U20 championship information.

It was not laborious to guess the possible winners within the first observe finals on the primary day of the championships. Whereas the ladies’s 5000m race had gone to the quickest on the beginning listing (each in PB and SB occasions), it had gone to the one with the quickest seasonal finest time within the males’s race.

Two Ethiopians within the girls’s race instantly took to the entrance after the gun. 2:57.27 was the time on the first 1000m, as three shaped a chasing pack comprising two Kenyans and one Ugandan, however the duo of Eisa Medina, the defending champion, and Mekedes Alemeshete, who had received the ladies’s 5000m race on the Shanghai Diamond League assembly with a then-world-leading time of 14:36.70 in April, had been in a special class from the remainder.

Eisa broke away from her teammate with about 1000m to go and received the race in a brand new championship document of 14:39.71, whereas Alemeshete adopted in 14:57.44.

Behind the Ethiopian runners, there was a special race for the bronze medal between Kenya’s Mercy Chepkemoi and Uganda’s Charity Cherop. The medal finally went to Cherop after she opened up a niche on her rival on the final lap, working 15:25.02.

Japan’s Natsui sprang to the entrance in the beginning of the boys’s 5000m last, crossing the 1000m level in 2:45.92, however the hole can be closed earlier than he reached 2000m. The pack, not like within the girls’s race, was nonetheless large.

Even on the bell, there have been nonetheless six runners: two Ethiopians, two Kenyans, two Ugandans and one Tanzanian, all in competition for the title. Ethiopia’s Adisa Fayisa made the primary transfer on the bell with the pack intently collectively as much as the final 200m.  However Alamisi out-kicked all of them with 50m to go to assert his first world title.

It was an in depth race. Alamisi received the race at 13:41.14, adopted by Fayisa at 13:41.56, and Uganda’s Kenneth Kiprop took third at 13:41.73.

Identical to the medal desk earlier than the day’s last occasion seemed, the highest three positions within the girls’s 3000m steeplechase heats additionally confirmed the three flags from Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya dominating the middle-distance race.

Kenya’s reigning Olympic Champion, Emmanuel Wanyonyi, holds the boys’s WU20 document for the 800m occasion at 1:43.76, and it was a little bit stunning to have the primary Kenyan on the observe, Phanuel Koech, fail to get an automated qualification within the heats of this occasion. However, fortuitously for him, he was already assured of a spot within the semi-finals, provided that he solely wanted to be within the high six quickest non-qualifiers, and there can be simply 4 of them attempting to run sooner than him within the last warmth. The opposite Kenyan, Kelvin Koech, was second in his warmth.

Sarah Moraa simply received her warmth within the girls’s 800m heats due to the mentorship she will get from her coaching companion, the reigning world champion Mary Moraa.