Mountain champ Wambui to grace Naivasha trials
World champion Lucy Murigi Wambui will be the star attraction as Kenya holds its first ever Mountain Racing National Trials this weekend in Naivasha.
The event will be flagged off at the Cornerstone Preparatory Academy along Mai Mahiu-Naivasha Road and will go through 10-kilometre and 6-kilometre trails at the Mt Longonot.
Four athletes in both the male and female senior categories plus two junior competitors will then be selected to represent the country at the 2018 World Mountain Championships in Naturlandia, Andorra.
“I want to appreciate the Athletics Kenya and the organizers for ensuring trials are held in our country for the first time. Although Naivasha has been raining we expect the terrain to be slippery and soggy but I have been training since January so I can cope,” Wambui told Citizen Digital.
The race will see athletes tackle about 9km of uphill and downhill and take the remaining kilometer running the steep uphill.
Senior women will cover 6km while junior men will run 6km with their female counterparts running 3km.
Both winners in senior men and women categories will receive KSh30,000 while the second and third-placed finishers will pocket KSh20,000 and KSh10,000 respectively.
Other elites expected to grace the race are former junior mountain winner and Commonwealth Games 10,000m champion Stella Chesang of Uganda and Commonwealth Marathon bronze medalist Robbie Simpson from England.
Selected finishers will go on a residential training in Austria courtesy of Run-2-Together, run by mountain running specialists Thomas Krejci and Geoffrey Gikoni.
-Report by Aaron Muthomi
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