Kiprop and Kiplagat take home rare double Half Marathon champs victory – Nanning 2010

Nanning, China – When Wilson Kiprop claimed the World title today (16) at the IAAF / SINOPEC World Half Marathon Championships, he not only ended Zersenay Tadese’s four year reign as the world’s premiere Half Marathoner. The 23-year-old joined his compatriot Florence Kiplagat on the top step of the Nanning podium to complete the first national double victory at these championships since 1999.

It was only the fourth time that one nation’s runners ran to gold since the inception of these championships in 1992. The other three were Kenyan pairs as well; in 1999 it was luminaries Tegla Loroupe, who won her third of three straight titles, and Paul Tergat, who collected his second of two victories. For Kiprop and Kiplagat, quite a nice duo to follow.

“This is the first (men’s) win for Kenya in a very long time. And I’m very, very happy for that,” said Kiprop, whose pre-race credentials, including a 59:39 over the distance one month ago which placed him among the biggest threats to defeat Tadese, the World record holder.

That triumph didn’t come until the final 200 metres of a bitterly fought battle which saw Kiprop’s confidence rise with every powerful stride.

“I was not yet confident because I knew it would be a fight in the last two hundred metres, so I was just holding on,” Kiprop said. “In the last 100 metres I saw that I was strong and I was able to run away.”

But the lanky runner who confidently strode across the finish line was anything but confident in the run-up to the race.

“Before the race I was weak,” Kiprop readily admitted. “After midnight I was still awake, thinking about all the top guys who were in the race. I was so fearful. I didn’t sleep well because I was thinking of the other guys and thinking about how to win this.”

“In fact,” he continued,” I woke up very early – I was just walking from my bed to the toilet. I was trembling.”

In addition to the day’s conditions, 22 C. with 65 percent humidity, both Kiprop and Kiplagat dealt with something the local balmy climate had nothing to do with. Rather, just the simple fact of bouncing back from their arduous journey to Nanning, a whirlwind adventure that lasted just over 40 hourr before reaching their hotel here at 1 am Friday morning.