Kenya athletics team head coach Julius Kirwa says they will apply the same tactics they used in the men’s 10,000m during the 5,000m final.
Daniel Simiu won a silver medal in the 10,000m behind Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda.
He reiterated that they have really tried to work on their speed since this is where they have always lost the race in previous championships.
“This year, we have pushed the long-distance runners to the limit in training and even some of them — who were against the idea — are ready to embrace it after seeing the results in the 10,000m,” he explained.
He said Kenya has been losing the 10,000m and 5000m over the years not because there are no runners who can do it, but because of lack of self-belief.
“For you to overcome certain barriers, you need to have what we call self-belief because a coach can only do so much,” adding that they have always lost the game in the last 400m due to lack of proper kick.
He said even in the 10,000m final, they were anticipating that the kick will start at the bell but Cheptegei did it with 500m to go.
"They didn't expect Cheptegei to kick earlier than the 400m and so that threw them into confusion and by the time they tried to recover, it was too late," said Kirwa.
The tactician explained that if they had taken the 10,000m race slowly, it would have worked against them.
Kenya will be represented by the quartet of Cornelius Kemboi, Nicholas Kimeli, Jacob Krop and Ismail Kirui.
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