Eisa and Alamisi triumph in Lima as all particular person medals go to a few Japanese African nations in Day 1

Justin Lagat is overlaying 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 Beneath 20 Championships after successful the ladies’s and males’s 5000m titles, respectively. Australia gained gold within the blended 4x400m relay in 3:19.27, forward of Poland in 3:20.44 and China in 3:21.27.

The World Athletics Beneath 20 Championships have all the time been the proper platform for introducing future World and Olympic champions. That is one motive 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 data.

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

Two Ethiopians within the ladies’s race instantly took to the entrance after the gun. 2:57.27 was the time on the first 1000m, as three fashioned a chasing pack comprising two Kenyans and one Ugandan, however the duo of Eisa Medina, the defending champion, and Mekedes Alemeshete, who had gained 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 gained the race in a brand new championship file 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 ultimately went to Cherop after she opened up a niche on her rival on the final lap, operating 15:25.02.

Japan’s Natsui sprang to the entrance initially of the boys’s 5000m ultimate, 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 ladies’s race, was nonetheless enormous.

Even on the bell, there have been nonetheless six runners: two Ethiopians, two Kenyans, two Ugandans and one Tanzanian, all in rivalry 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 gained the race at 13:41.14, adopted by Fayisa at 13:41.56, and Uganda’s Kenneth Kiprop took third at 13:41.73.

Similar to the medal desk earlier than the day’s ultimate occasion appeared, the highest three positions within the ladies’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 file for the 800m occasion at 1:43.76, and it was a little bit stunning to have the primary Kenyan on the monitor, Phanuel Koech, fail to get an automated qualification within the heats of this occasion. However, luckily for him, he was already assured of a spot within the semi-finals, on condition that he solely wanted to be within the prime six quickest non-qualifiers, and there can be simply 4 of them making an attempt to run sooner than him within the ultimate warmth. The opposite Kenyan, Kelvin Koech, was second in his warmth.

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