World record miss a motivation for Chemutai

Fancy Chemutai says she has no regrets despite coming on the brink of a World Record (WR) run in Friday’s RAK Half Marathon.

Chemutai was the toast of the Kenyan charge in UAE, upstaging pre-race favourite and women-only Marathon WR holder Mary Keitany and could have claimed a global record of her own only to miss by the nearest of margins.

Her winning time of one hour, four minutes and 52 seconds was just a second shy of the current WR held by her compatriot Joyciline Jepkosgei (1:04.51).

Keitany settled for second place two seconds later in 1:04:55 with Caroline Kipkirui sealing the last available podium place in 1:05.07.

Chemutai told Citizen Digital she had no idea she was inside the WR time and had felt strong enough to challenge Keitany who was using the race to prepare for the Virgin Money London Marathon where she is targeting the WR.

The 23-year-old insisted she has no time to mull over RAK could-haves but instead will look back to a performance that will inspire her to go for a podium place in the forthcoming World Half Marathon Championship in Valencia, Spain March 24.

“I was out of the WR time at the 20km mark and didn’t know I would recover. I felt energetic with 100m to go and thought to myself there is no harm challenging Keitany. When I discovered that I had missed it by just a second I still felt proud considering I hadn’t done enough training due to injury,” Chemutai said.

Chemutai who trains at Duka Moja, Kericho County, adds that competing in RAK was beneficial to her in gauging Jepkosgei, whom she will team up with during the World Half Marathon Championships next month.

She made her international debut at last year’s Sportisimo Prague Half Marathon, April 1 where Jepkosgei won in 1:04:52, breaking four world records for 10km, 15km and 20km en route to victory ahead of Violah Jepchumba (1:05:22) as  Chemutai  finished third in 1:06:58.