Brimin Kipruto impresses at the 2011 Samsung Diamond League Herculis Meet – Athletics news
As the 2011 Samsung Diamond League Herculis Meet concluded on Friday, July 22, it was Kenya’s Brimin Kipruto, who, for clocking seven minutes and 53.64 seconds, displayed the finest performance of the event in the 3000m steeplechase.
As the race concluded, the results depicted by Kipruto were realised as the best Kenyan performance for the discipline, which just missed the world record by 0.01 seconds.
Entering the field with a determination to prevail against his rivals, Kipruto, decided to pull himself away from rest of the lot right from the gun. As the race lingered, the strength of his strides increased gradually to the point where he covered the final lap of the race in a mere 60 seconds. The depiction of such a fine performance left the audience at Monaco at their toes, however, for just missing the world record of seven minutes and 53.63 seconds made by his countryman, Saif Saaeed Shaheen, Kipruto also felt disappointed with his effort.
Without realising it could be Kipruto, the emergence of a new world record out of the run had become a visible result as the leading squad of the meet passed first kilometre of the race in mere two minutes and 36.55 seconds. For not being able to keep pace with this quality performance by the second kilometre of the race, there were only four athletes leading from the front.
Besides Kipruto, the other three athletes vowing to bag the title at that point were Ezekiel Kemboi, Haron Lagat and Paul Koech. After winning the title and getting to know that he barely missed the global record for the distance, Kipruto said, “The race was so fast for everyone I didn’t even know it was a world record. When I saw the clock I was just so grateful. Next time at the world championships I will try and break the world record.”
Another important aspect of the race was the life-time best performance displayed by Kemboi and Koech, with the former clocking a seven minutes and 55.76 seconds time and the latter hitting the finishing line in seven minutes and 57.32 seconds.
In the short distance sprints, it was Usain Bolt who prevailed, but this time, it was not that easy for the fastest athlete of the world to defeat his rivals. Rather, he had to fight for every inch on the track to sustain his dominance in the 100m sprint completion.
The brighter aspect of the race is that it truly made runners realise of their real potential. Perhaps, this is the reason why Kipruto has started thinking of doing the unfinished job of marking a new world record at the IAAF World Athletics Championships.
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