Despair As Women’s Marathon World Champion Ruth Chepngetich Pulls Out of Race Midway

Despair As Women’s Marathon World Champion Ruth Chepngetich Pulls Out of Race Midway

Martin Moses
updated at April 12, 2023 at 8:07 PM
  • Kenya's hopes of completing a 1-2-3 sweep at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon suffered a setback when Ruth Chepngetich pulled out of the race
  • Ruth Chepcngetich is the defending champion, but stomach problems saw her fail to launch her title bid
  • Team Kenya had Chepngetich alongside Angela Tanui and Judith Korir and Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir who also withdrew even before the championships began.

Team Kenya was dealt a massive blow in their pursuit to have a clean sweep in the women's marathon when defending champion Ruth Chepngetich withdrew after 18 kilometres.

Chepngetich was part of the three Kenyan women looking to land Kenya's first gold at the ongoing World Athletics Championships in Oregon, USA.

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She was also looking to become the first woman after Edna Kiplangát to win back-to-back titles after her triumph in Doha, Qatar, in 2019.

Early reports indicate that Chepngetich had stomach problems. Kenya's hopes of a podium finish remain with Judith Korir and Angela Tanui.

Judith Korir narrowly misses out on Gold in the women's marathon

The race was finally won by Ethiopia's Gotytom Gebreslase, with Judith Korir finishing second, as Sports Brief reported.

Kenya's search for her first gold medal at the World Athletics Championships is set to continue after Judith Korir narrowly missed out in the women's marathon.

Korir was beaten by Ethiopia's Gotytom Gebreslase, who set a championship record to become the new champion. Kenyan-born turned Israeli national Lonah Salpeter won bronze.

From running barefoot to becoming a five-time world champion, the inspiring story of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

At the same time, Sports Brief reported that Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will go down in history as one of the greatest sprinters ever, male or female, is no longer in question.

The only thing she hasn't been able to do in the women's 100 metres is to break the long-standing record of Florence Griffith-Joyner, which was set in 1988. Flo-Jo used a whopping 10.49 seconds in a 100-metre dash at the U.S Olympic trials, and no one has broken that record more than three decades later.

But Fraser-Pryce has gone ahead to write her own history. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, she grew up in a violence-plagued environment and was raised by a single mother, Maxine Simpson. She started running barefoot while in primary school at the tender age of 10.

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Martin Moses
Martin Moses is a sports journalist with over five years of experience in media. He graduated from Multimedia University of Kenya (Bachelor of Journalism, 2017-2021)
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