There will be three medal event on the opening day, and Ferdinand Omanyala, the African record holder over 100m, the undisputed new showman of Kenyan athletics, will also offer the biggest attention.
Here is Team Kenya’s morning program from Budapest.
9:50am – 20km men’s walk final
This will be Kenya’s first opportunity to win a medal in the nine-day championship, with Samuel Gathimba set to compete.
The three-time African champion will be looking for his first ever World Championship medal, having come close and placed fourth in Oregon last year.
The national champion has a bronze medal from the Commonwealth Games in 2018, but thirsts for a piece of silverware from the global event, where he is currently ranked seventh worldwide.
12:05pm – Mixed Relays heats
The 4x400m mixed relays team comprising Commonwealth Games 800m champions Mary Moraa and Wycliffe Kinyamal as well as Bonface Mweresa and Naomi Korir will begin their charge for a medal, and will be lining up in the first of two Heats.
With a talented, star-studded line up, the quartet who qualified by virtue of ranking have their tails up, hoping to qualify for the semi-finals.
12:35pm – Men’s 3,000m steeplechase Heat
Having lost the world title to Soufiane El Bakkali in Oregon last year, Kenya’s youthful steeplechase team will look to assert their authority early on when the Heats start Saturday afternoon.
Kenya’s team is made of up youngster Simon Koech, Abraham Kibiwott and Leonard Bett, all former medalists at junior levels.
Koech clinched bronze at the Uner-20 championships hosted in Nairobi in 2021 and won the Kenyan trials. He warmed up for Budapest with an imperious run at the Monaco Diamond League, from where he won the race and clinched qualification time.
He will line up in Heat One and among the tough athletes he will compete against include Ethiopia’s Getnet Wale.
Kibiwott, the reigning Commonwealth Games champion, with a season’s best of 8:05.51 lines up in Heat Two, where reigning champion El Bakkali will also be lining up from, and it will be an early tease of what is to come.
Bett, in Heat Three, will also be up for some early teasing, when he lines up alongside Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma, who finished second behind El Bakkali in Oregon last year.
2:15pm – Women’s 1500m Heats
Double World Record holder, double Olympic champion and double World Champion will be the highlight of the race, as she starts her journey towards an unprecedented third world title.
Kipyegon has been in sizzling form this season, lowering three world records in her 1500m specialty, the 5,000m and the rarely run mile.
She will be lining up in Heat Two where she is the outright favourite, while Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji, the second fastest in the field this season, will look to offer competition.
Great Britain’s Melissa Courtney-Bryant is the only other athlete in the Heat who has run a sub-4 this season, with a best of 3:58.01.
Youngster Edinah Jebitok will be the other Kenyan in the race, and lines up in Heat One, where she will contest with Kipyegon’s biggest competitor for the title, Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan.
Nelly Chepchirchir, making her debut in the seniors, will be in heat three while Purity Chepkirui, the 2021 World Under-20 Champion, lines up in heat four.
){kind=link}
