Athletics Kenya (AK) will field their largest contingent at this year’s World Mountain and Trail Running Championships (WMTRC), president Jackson Tuwei has revealed.
The country will field a team of 16 (eight men, eight women) at the championships set for Canfranc- Pirineos, Spain, between September 25 and 28.
Speaking during the annual Magical Kenya Barng’etuny Mountain Run at Lion Hills Farm in Nandi, Tuwei said their mission is to keep the chokehold of the emerging phenomenon.
Already, AK have named a provisional team of four featuring the top two in the men’s and women’s 14km races in Nandi — Janet Chepng’etich, Mercy Chemutai, Alfred Cheruiyot and Ken Koross.
“Ahead of this event, we announced that we shall use it to select a provisional team for the World Mountain and Train Running Championships. We already have the four athletes,” said Tuwei.
He said the complete team will be named later.
“We shall use World rankings to name the other members of the team,” added Tuwei.
AK will use the 2024 Mountain Running World Cup and Golden Trail World Series ranking to select the rest of the athletes.
AK will also pick runners according to their consistency in the 2025 events.
The Mountain Running World Cup will kick off in May in Romania while the Golden Trail World Series will start in Kobe, Japan, in April.
“Mountain and trail running is not like any other events, that’s why we have resorted to naming the team early,” added Tuwei.
Multiple World Champion Patrick Kipng’eno is the topranked Kenyan male athlete while double champion Philemon Kiriago is third.
Other top-ranked athletes Richard Atuya and Paul Machoka are favourites to land slots in Team Kenya to Spain.
Multiple world champion Joyce Njeru is the top-ranked Kenyan followed by Philaris Kisang.
AK are expected to enter
a provisional team for the world
show in July while the final team
will be registered in early August.
