IAAF World Championships

Asbel Kiprop: Winning From the Front or the Back, Targeting Gold in Beijing

Asbel Kiprop: Winning From the Front or the Back, Targeting Gold in Beijing

Jul 29, 2015 by Taylor Dutch
Asbel Kiprop: Winning From the Front or the Back, Targeting Gold in Beijing




By Sabrina Yohannes 

One week after crushing a strong 1500m field with a front-running personal best 3:26.69 in Monaco, Kenya’s world champion Asbel Kiprop hung back from pacemakers in the London Diamond League mile before trailing to the back of the pack, but he got the win in 3:54.87 ahead of world silver medalist Matt Centrowitz of the USA and world indoor champion Ayanleh Souleiman of Djibouti.
 
The former Olympic champion Kiprop will face fierce opposition at the Beijing world championships in August, and his own tactics have not always proved invincible. But his last two races left many feeling that Asbel Kiprop can win a fast or a slow race, running from the front or coming from behind.
 
Kiprop shared his race mindset and his gold medal and world record ambitions in an interview, and along the way revealed his studious approach to past races -- his own and others’ -- including the other instances he employed similar approaches, but didn’t quite succeed.
 
WINNING FROM BEHIND IN LONDON

In the July 25 Emsley Carr Mile at Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games in London, Kiprop slowed his pace on the second lap, allowing several runners to pass him, moments after which he stumbled while running next to the rail.
 
“When the crowd came to pass me, I think I tripped and I found myself going back while trying to regain balance,” said Kiprop, who then remained in dead last position for much of the next lap, seeming content to lope behind the partly bunched pack.
 
“I was having confidence because after running 3:26 last week, I wasn’t nervous at all when I was in a slow race,” said Kiprop, now the third-fastest man ever behind the 3:26.00 world record-holder Hicham el Guerrouj. “At the 500m [to go] mark, I decided to catch up with the guys in front at the bell and maybe at 300m I would be with them in order to accelerate at the last part.”
 
Kiprop drew level with the leaders on the backstretch, and swung wide and kicked for home after American Ben Blankenship moved in front of him.
 
“At that point of a race, running with guys like Blankenship and Souleiman, including Centrowitz, when the race is a little bit slow and you are with them, you can lose because they are good at kicking,” said Kiprop. “Remember what happened at the World Relays when Blankenship blasted away from the Kenyan; and also Centrowitz, who has been consistent in these kinds of races; and Souleiman -- remember how he won at the Continental Cup last year. I was lucky enough I had enough strength.”
 
At the Continental Cup, Kiprop had remained in last or second-to-last position until going to the front at the bell, but his last-lap duel with Souleiman netted him silver.
 
“I was excited, because at some point in the last 500m you manage to secure the win in such a strong field of world-class athletes -- you must be happy at what you have done,” said Kiprop of Saturday’s London mile.
 
Having outkicked the field, he uncharacteristically waved in celebration before the finish.
“I was looking at the screen, and then I saw the line [on the track] where we started the mile, and I momentarily thought it was the finish line, but then I realized it was nine meters from the finish,” said Kiprop.
 
After the race, he seemed happier than after his 3:26 win at the Herculis Monaco DL the previous week. 
 
MONACO AND THE WORLD RECORD

“Sometimes, you want to be excited about something like 3:26, but do you remember what happened a few years ago to Brimin Kipruto?” said Kiprop. “He ran the Monaco steeplechase and ran 7:53.64, while the [world] record is 7:53.63, and he missed it by 1/100th of a second. You want to be happy, having done that, but you think, ‘I wish I knew it was within reach, so I could go after it from 200m.’ I almost reached the record.”

Kiprop’s long legs may have just covered 1500m in 3:26, but as his competitors congratulated him after the finish, his thoughts were racing at a million miles a minute.
 
“I’m excited I’ve done a PB, a Diamond League record,” he said. “But then again, I’ve missed the [world] record. This time of the season, you’re not looking ahead to future races, because of the world championships. I was thinking: ‘Will I be able to run after the world championships? I’m capable. Will I manage to maintain my form after the world championships and the qualifying rounds and the travel to China? Ohh, I missed this thing!" 
 
Kiprop, who had run 3:27.72 while targeting the world mark on Monaco’s fast track last year, believes the record is attainable for him.
 
“It is within reach,” he said. “I can tell. And it needs proper preparation and good pacing, and everything is possible. Every athlete wants to be the world champion, the Olympic champion, and if possible, the world record-holder, and I do too.”
 
“In Monaco, the pacing was great, the weather conditions were good, and it came at the right time of the season when we have done the Kenyan nationals,” added Kiprop, who, having run 1:43.15 in 2011 and 1:44.4 in Kenya earlier this year, won the 800m in 1:45.4 at the nationals on July 11 ahead of Olympic bronze medalist Timothy Kitum and Jackson Kivuva. 
 
Kenya’s Beijing team will be named after the world championships trials this weekend. Four men can be entered in the 1500m as Beijing 2015 rules allow a country to use a wild card entry for either a defending champion like Kiprop or a 2014 Diamond League trophy winner, in this case, Kenyan Silas Kiplagat.
 
In general, Athletics Kenya is expected to offer Beijing slots to the top two finishers at trials races, with the federation’s discretion coming into play in selecting the rest of the team.
 
800M FLIRTATIONS

Kiprop will be contesting the 1500m trials race but had expressed interest, seriously or not, in running the 800m at the trials instead (assuming selection to the 1500m after his participation in the meet) and he had added that he was even considering running both events in Beijing. 
 
“In 2009, I was put in the 800m team for the world championships based on my running in Doha in 1:43.17,” said Kiprop, who was fourth in the 1500 and didn’t make the 800 final in Berlin. “I did the double. But this time around, it’s a little bit different. It’s me wanting to do it. If I win the trials, I will consider it.” 
 
He will not have that opportunity to run the 800m trials.
 
“Kiprop, the 1500m world champion, has indicated that he wants to run in 800m and not his traditional 1500m,” said Athletics Kenya official David Okeyo in a Xinhua report. “He has the qualification time in both, but it is good he remains in the four-lap and focuses on it, and if we see we have a weakness in 800m, then we can allow him to double. But even that is dependent on the program of events in Beijing. All these have to be looked into before one is allowed to double up.”
 
2015 SEASON ON TRACK

In any event, Kiprop’s outdoor season to date bodes very well for his world title defense in the metric mile, ahead of which his mile victory at his last Diamond League event before Beijing felt good.
 
“Remember what happened in Eugene, when it was early in the season,” he said. “I ran from behind and I was strong, but the timing was a little bit poor. But this time, I got it right at 300m to go, so they couldn’t get away.”
 
Kiprop ran at or near the back of the pack until the final lap of the Eugene DL mile, but he finished behind Souleiman and Centrowitz.
 
Kiprop has won all of his DL races since then, defeating 2011 world silver medalist Silas Kiplagat and Souleiman after running mid-pack for much of the Oslo Dream Mile in June. 
But news reports from the Kenyan nationals had quoted Kiprop saying he was only at 70% fitness, about a week before his July 17 Monaco outing.
 
“I mentioned that during the nationals because the last time I had raced was in Oslo, and I had some workouts and I wasn’t hitting the targets according to what my coach was giving me, so it’s like, I still have some more to go to be 100% or 80%,” Kiprop, whose coach is Kenyan David Leting, explained. He added that he had been targeting a new PB in Monaco, but hadn’t expected the time he clocked.
 
Having destroyed championship-caliber 1500m fields in Monaco and London eight days apart – Kiplagat is the only top contender Kiprop didn’t face in either meet – the Daegu 2011 and Moscow 2013 champion and now owner of a spectacular PB Kiprop has one thing on his agenda, apart from the Kenyan trials.
 
“I am going to try in Beijing to maintain form over the coming weeks to be in similar or a little bit better form and be in position for the gold,” said Kiprop, who will return next month to the Chinese city where he earned 2008 Olympic gold, although he only received that piece of hardware several years later, following the disqualification of winner Rashid Ramzi. 
 
Kiprop is looking to, this time, be awarded the gold medal while standing right there on the podium in the middle of the field, inside the stadium, in Beijing.
 
“Oh, it’s a dream!” said Kiprop. “It’s a dream I have to work extra hard for and it also motivates me to do that: to get it live in Beijing, and have the Kenyan national anthem and flag be raised before myself in the Bird’s Nest Stadium.”