Kenya - Where is it all going wrong?

ecoli

No Medals in the mens 10,000m

Kenyan favourite beaten in the womens 10,000m

No Kenyan in the top 7 in the 1500m despite having three medal favourites

No medal for the Kenyan favourite Mary Keitany in the Marathon

and now Edwin Soi not getting an auto spot in the mens 5000m and will have a nervous wait

Where is it all going wrong? The shift change from track to Marathon and a changing in their dominant nature or just bad prep this year?

TFBubendorfer

The biggest reason is the big focus on the marathon. For the Kenyans running is the ticket out of abject poverty, and there is no real money in track any more.

AK being a complete disaster and not always selecting their best athletes doesn't help, though.

myflipflops

ecoli wrote: »

Where is it all going wrong? The shift change from track to Marathon and a changing in their dominant nature or just bad prep this year?

The money in the marathon is the major game changer.

The impact on the junior scene in the men's events due to blatant age cheating has to have a big knock on effect too.

ss43

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

The biggest reason is the big focus on the marathon. For the Kenyans running is the ticket out of abject poverty, and there is no real money in track any more.

That covers sending weaker teams but doesn't explain this championship.

ecoli wrote: »

No Medals in the mens 10,000m

Kenyan favourite beaten in the womens 10,000m

No Kenyan in the top 7 in the 1500m despite having three medal favourites

No medal for the Kenyan favourite Mary Keitany in the Marathon

and now Edwin Soi not getting an auto spot in the mens 5000m and will have a nervous wait

Where is it all going wrong? The shift change from track to Marathon and a changing in their dominant nature or just bad prep this year?

Men's 10k - weren't good enough to medal, talent gone to the marathon covers this

Women's 10k - Vivian was injured, still got third. Kipyego ran well. Kenya have never had a woman good enough to have won that race (i.e. no Kenyan ever would ahve beaten Dibaba this year)

1500 - Kiprop was injured but kept it reasonably quiet. Chepseba ran like an idiot in the first round, smart in the semi but then back to being an idiot in the final. He would have finished higher if he ran hard from the front. Kiplagat must have left his good form behind him earlier in the season. He should have been able to handle that.

Marathon - London may have been too close to allow Keitany enough time to recover properly, train hard and taper.

Because the standard is so high, they probably feel the need to run fast early in the season to show they're in form before their trials. Holding that shape for a long time is pretty hard.

They have to earn their money too. If they get called into a camp (which happened before their trials last time) their racing options are severely limited. To make their money, they needed (or maybe thought they needed) to race well early in the season.

ecoli

myflipflops wrote: »

The money in the marathon is the major game changer.

The impact on the junior scene in the men's events due to blatant age cheating has to have a big knock on effect too.

Intially it was my opinion to but If you look at the likes of Soi, Kiplagat, Kiprop these are guys who have been around and medalists/medal favourites off recent performances so i dont think their performances can be put down to the the Marathon argument just

The age thing does have a bearing in terms of youth development alright but I can't help but feel that the Pre Olympic Camps such as the ones reported for the middle distances runners may have had some sort of effect when you see three Kenyan athletes all underperform in the one race

ss43

myflipflops wrote: »

The impact on the junior scene in the men's events due to blatant age cheating has to have a big knock on effect too.

Is that a recent development? Thought it was always the case. There's very little in the way of underage competition there anyway. From what I can gather there's schools championships (no age groups; sepearate primary and secondary championships) at district, provincial and national level and junior national championships.

TheZ

Different agents and not running as a team anymore?

Also rumblings of infighting in Athletics Kenya and poor preparation

wrstan

It's a great question ecoli, and very intriguing! Thanks for starting this thread.
I don't have any answers other than those already suggested, but I will watch this discussion with interest.

The real intrigue will definitely be the men's marathon though. After the selection dilemmas and AK's final choices, not to mention the amazing depth of fast marathoners coming out of Kenya in the last few years, if Kenya doesn't win gold (which is far from a given) I fear a total implosion of Kenyan athletics. I can't wait to watch it unfold on Sunday morning.

KielyUnusual

Given their depth of talent in the marathon, I imagine it would be seen as a huge disappointment if they didn't win at least two out of the three medals. In my opinion the top 20 times in the past year should qualify for the marathon (and other disciplines too), regardless of the country's quota. You could almost be certain they'd take a clean sweep of medals if this was the case. As it is, anything can happen over 26 miles and nothing is guaranteed.