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Crowned Olympic champion in Tokyo last summer, Soufiane El Bakkali won world gold in the 3000m steeplechase final in Eugene (Oregon) on Monday July 18. The Moroccan again dominated in this discipline where Kenya dictated its law for more than 30 years.
Conseslus Kipruto, reigning double world champion (2017 and 2019), knew his throne in the 3000m steeplechase was threatened. The Kenyan, also Olympic champion in Rio in 2016, had fierce competition against him on Monday July 18, for the final of the 2022 Worlds in Eugene. The 2021 Olympic champion, Soufiane El Bakkali, was expected, as was the Ethiopian Lamecha Girma, the 2019 world vice-champion and 2022 Olympic vice-champion, who chained three lap times of less than 8 minutes in the space of ten days. late May-early June.
The danger was very real on the track at Hayward Field. And indeed, Kenya saw its supremacy in the 3000m steeplechase crumble again. As in Tokyo, the executioner is called Soufiane El Bakkali. In Japan, the Moroccan went for goldending Kenya’s stint of uninterrupted rule between 1984 and 2016. The founder did it again in the United States.
Already dethroned at the Olympics, Kenya also sees its hegemony at the Worlds destroyed
Renowned for his finish, the Moroccan athlete made everyone agree when crossing the river, the penultimate obstacle which is located in the last bend. Third in ambush behind Lamecha Girma and Conseslus Kipruto, Soufiane El Bakkali placed a fatal acceleration. Kipruto soon found he didn’t have the legs to keep up. Girma, he tried to challenge the leader. But as soon as the last hurdle passed, El Bakkali went over the gas and left the Ethiopian behind.
« The race was very tactical, slow. I positioned myself well on the last lap. I’m very strong in the last 400m and it worked for me “, he commented, satisfied to have made exactly the same blow as in Tokyo.
Now Olympic champion and world champion, the Moroccan has overturned the plateau of the 3000m steeplechase. Already, seeing him in gold at the Olympics was a sensation, as Kenya had been dominating until then. But on the Worlds side, it was even more obvious: the Kenyans had taken gold in all editions since 1987, i.e. 15 consecutive world champion titles until 2019*.
Vice-world champion in 2017, third in 2019, Soufiane El Bakkali, 26, is delighted with this first step. Like a wink, it was here, in Eugene, that he adorned himself in gold. This same city where he participated in his first major competition, the 2014 World Junior Championships. At the time, he was ranked fourth. ” I come back eight years later as a champion “, he savors. Kenya, for its part, notes the reality: there is a new boss in the 3000m steeplechase, and he is not Kenyan. ” I am the king of the steeplechase because I gained confidence on the track. That’s why I’m Olympic champion and now world champion “, added El Bakkali to our colleagues from the BBC.
Consolation all the same for Kenya with the second consecutive title won Tuesday, July 19 by Faith Kipyegon over 1,500m, with the passage the 10th best time in history (3’52”96). She was ahead of Ethiopian Gudaf Tsegay and Britain’s Laura Muir. This is the first Kenyan gold medal of these 2022 Worlds.
* Saif Saaeed Shaheen, born Stephen Cherono, defended the colors of Kenya, his native country, until 2003, when he was naturalized as a Qatari; it is under this nationality that he won the world titles of 2003 and 2005.