Eisa and Alamisi win in Lima as all individual medals go to three East African nations on day one

Justin Lagat is covering the World Under-20 Athletics Champions for RunBlogRun this week. This is his first U20 World Cup column.

Ethiopia’s Medina Eisa, the defending champion, and Kenya’s Andrew Alamisi are the first gold medalists at the Lima 2024 U20 World Championships after winning the women’s and men’s 5,000m titles respectively. Australia won gold in the 4x400m relay in 3:19.27, ahead of Poland in 3:20.44 and China in 3:21.27.

The World Athletics U20 Championships have always been the perfect platform to showcase future world and Olympic champions. This is one of the reasons we should all remember the names of the rising stars here. Some reigning Olympic champions, including Armand Mondo Duplantis and Letsile Tebogo, still hold the U20 World Championship records.

On the first day of the championship, it was not difficult to predict the probable winners in the final of the first race. Although the women’s 5000m was the fastest on the start list (in both PB and SB times), it went to the race with the fastest season best time in the men’s race.

Two Ethiopians in the women’s race went to the front just before the gun. 2:57.27 was the first time in the 1000m as the three formed a chasing pack of two Kenyans and one Ugandan, but the pairing of Eissa Medina, the defending champion, and Mekedes Alemeshete, who had won the women’s 5000m at the Shanghai Diamond. The league meet, with a then-world-leading time of 14:36.70 in April, stood out from the rest of the class.

Eisa pulled away from his team-mate with 1000m to go to win the race in a new championship record 14:39.71, while Alemeshete followed in 14:57.44.

Behind the Ethiopian runners was another race for the bronze medal between Kenya’s Mercy Chepkemo and Uganda’s Charity Cherop. The medal eventually went to Cherop when he passed his rival in the final lap, running 15:25.02.

At the start of the men’s 5,000m final, Japan’s Natsu took the lead, crossing the 1,000m mark in 2:45.92, but the gap would close before the 2,000m mark. The pack, unlike the women’s race, was still huge.

Even at the bell there were still six runners – two Ethiopians, two Kenyans, two Ugandans and one Tanzanian – all in contention for the title. Ethiopia’s Adisa Fayisa made the first move at the bell, leading the pack closely to the final 200 meters. But Alamisi edged everyone out with 50m to go to win his first world title.

It was a close race. Alamisi won the race in 13:41.14, followed by Fayisa in 13:41.56 with Uganda’s Kenneth Kiprop third in 13:41.73.

As the medal table showed before the final event of the day, the top three positions in the women’s 3000m also saw the three flags of Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya dominate the middle distance race.

Kenya’s reigning Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi holds the men’s 800m WU20 record of 1:43.76 and it was a bit of a surprise that Kenya’s first runner-up Fanuel Ketch failed to automatically qualify for the heats of the season. this event. But luckily for him, he was already guaranteed a place in the semi-finals, given that he only needed to finish in the top six fastest non-qualifiers, and only four of them would try to go faster than him. ultimate warmth. Another Kenyan, Calvin Koch, was second in heat.

Sarah Moraa easily won the women’s 800m thanks to the mentoring she receives from her training partner, reigning world champion Mary Moraa.