Kenyans plot Jebet downfall in Day 8 showdown

The 2017 IAAF World Championship enters its eighth day on Friday with plenty of action in store for athletics fans across the globe.

For Kenyan fans, much of the attention will be on the women’s 3000m steeplechase final where the East African athletics powerhouse will be on a mission to gun down one of their own.

The bull’s eye mark will be on the head of world record holder Ruth Jebet who is seeking to add the world title to her Olympic crown from last year as she was one of many recruited by Bahrain.

She was beaten narrowly in her semi-final by Kenyan Beatrice Chepkoech, who also edged her in the Paris Diamond League meeting.

Kenya’s defending champion Hyvin Jepkemoi looks in fine fettle but the surprise packet may be her 18-year-old Celliphine Chespol, who caught the eye in setting a new world Under-20 record when winning the Diamond League race in Eugene.

Women’s 800m semi-finals

Caster Semenya, South Africa’s reigning two-time Olympic champion and twice a world gold medallist, will aim to get through a loaded semi-final in her bid to add to the bronze medal she won in the 1500m.

Defending champion Maryna Arzamasova of Belarus bombed out in round one, and Kenya’s 2013 champion Eunice Sum was a non-starter, but the field can still boast Olympic silver and bronze medallists, Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi and Kenya’s Margaret Wambui.

Women’s 200m final

Dafne Schippers looks odds-on favourite to defend her 200m world title, but she will no doubt face opposition from Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas, who shrugged off her extraordinary collapse within sight of winning the 400m world title to coast into the final.

Women’s long jump final

This should be an engrossing spectacle with defending champion and Olympic gold medallist Tianna Bartoletta taking on her fellow American Brittney Reese whilst Russian Darya Klishina is also in with a shout though competing as an Authorised Neutral Athlete.

Reese is out to avenge losing her Olympic crown to Bartoletta, who amazingly won the first of her two world titles back in 2005.

Klishina is hoping that these championships are a happier experience than the Olympics when she was the only Russian to compete and was branded a traitor by her own people.

Women’s 100 metres hurdles heats and semi-finals

Australia have had a quiet championships but in Sally Pearson they possess their class act and a proven champion. The 2012 Olympic champion returns to the stadium where she experienced her greatest moment albeit after a couple of years of injuries which cost her appearances at the 2016 Olympics and the 2015 worlds.

She showed some of her old spark in the Diamond League event in London last month but she will have to up her game to beat America’s world record holder Kendra Harrison.

The latter won the Diamond League race in London but Pearson’s advantage is she knows how to cope with major championships whilst Harrison is unproven and failed to make the Olympic team last year.