NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 19 – Despite clinching Kenya’s third silver at the ongoing World Championship in Oregon, Judith Korir says she was ‘unimpressed’ with the running tactics of winner Gotytom Gebreslase of Ethiopia.
The Paris Marathon champion clocked a personal best of 2:18:20 in second as Gebreslase earned her country’s second gold in the road races, clocking 2:18:11 as Kenyan-born Israeli Lonah Chemtai finished third in 2:20:18.
Korir said she would have wanted to pace with the winner at one point in the race but it was to no avail.
“The Ethiopian runners are very fast. It is not easy to run with them but I tried my best. It bothered me a bit. The fact that she (Gotyom) did not want to pace with me even after it was only us two, alone. Nonetheless, I am happy with my silver and personal best,” Korir said.
Korir’s silver helped salvage what has been a disastrous outing for the men and women’s marathon team as Ethiopia took top honours in both categories.
Two-time Boston Marathon champion Lawrence Cherono was provisionally suspended a day before the men’s competition for alleged use of a banned substance.
Kenya, subsequently, missed out on the podium places with former world half marathon record holder Geoffrey Kamworor’s fifth-place finish the best result for the country in the race.
More misfortune befell the women’s marathon team after immediate former champion Ruth Chepng’etich was forced to drop out of the race due to stomach complications.
Commenting on her colleague’s predicament, Korir said she had to run the race for Chepng’etich and for Kenya as a whole.
“She had told me that she was not feeling well and asked me to push on and carry the country’s flag high. Therefore, I knew I had to give everything to get on the podium. I am happy to have followed in the footsteps of my other colleagues in Team Kenya who had won medals earlier,” she said.
Korir, who was debuting for Kenya at the international level, said her latest feat has motivated her to pursue greater things in the future.
Top on her to-do list is next year’s World Championship in Budapest, Hungary as well as the Paris Olympics in 2024.
“I will go back to the drawing board to continue training even as I prepare for more road races. I want to come back to the World Championships next year and of course, to make it to the Paris Olympics,” she said.
