Stephen Kissa To Carry The Ugandan Flag At The Athletics World Championships

Stephen Kissa To Carry The Ugandan Flag At Athletics World Championships

Posted by: Kyeyune Andrew Jonathan in Marathon April 26, 2022

Stephen Kissa is on his way to represent the country at the Athletics World Championships due to take place in July in Oregon in the United States. This is after a strong run on his debut at the Hamburg Marathon on Sunday.

On Sunday, Kissa could have won the marathon after leading for long spells. However, during the final few meters, Kenya’s Cybrian Kotut outsprinted him.

In addition to winning the marathon, Kotut also set a new world record.

His silver medal-winning time of 2:04:48 seconds came 24 seconds faster than the previous record of 2:05:12 set by Filex Chemonges on 20th October 2019. This happened in Toronto Waterfront Marathon in Canada.

The long-distance runner (Stephen Kissa) also became the first Ugandan to run below two hours five minutes over 42 kilometres as he further underlined his mastery of the longest road race.

“I am very happy, I enjoyed the race. I should have won this race. I’m still happy to qualify for Oregon. I wanted sub-2:04 and I got it,” Kissa said while speaking.

Ugandan Victor Kiplangat was beaten to third spot by Ethiopian Workineh Tadesse. He finished two seconds ahead of Kiplagat with a time of 2:05:07.

Kiplangat, winner of the 2021 Istanbul Marathon had to be resilient after completing the marathon with a bruised knee. This followed a tumble at a refreshment point at the 25-kilometre mark.

“Someone tripped me as I was getting a drink at 25km,” the 22-year-old said. “But I couldn’t give up. If I had not fallen down, I could have done better,” he said.

The qualification time for the World Championship stands at 2:11:30, with the qualification window running from November 30, 2020 up to May 29, 2022.

Chemonges holds the third-fastest qualification time after running 2:07:19 at the Daegu Marathon in South Korea last week.

Geofrey Kusuro holds fourth after posting 2:09:23 as he finished second at the Madrid Marathon in Spain over the weekend.

Check Also;

This is not a Paywall, but Newslex Point's journalism consumes a lot of time, hard-work and money. That's why we're kindly requesting you to support us in anyway they can, for as little as $1 or more, you can support us .

Please use the button below to contribute to Newslex Point, Inc. using a credit card or via PayPal.