Reigning 10 kilometre world record holder Agnes Jebet Ngetich is among the top athletes who will participate in the 4th edition of the Absa Sirikwa Classic World Cross Country tour to be held at the Lobo Village in Kapseret on the 22nd of this month.
Speaking during the launch, the race director Barnaba Korir emphasised that only top-ranked athletes and those cleared for doping by World Athletics and the Athletes Integrity Unit will be invited for the core events.
“When it comes to the world events now being given by world leaders, there are some minimum requirements that we have to meet, and one of those is to ensure that we give reasonable prize money for the athletes, and then, of course, we are not going to allow everybody to participate in it because this one now is a world event. They give us the conditions on how to invite them,” Korir said.
World Athletics senior programme manager Alice Annibol, who also attended yesterday’s launch, challenged Kenyan athletes to run clean.
“Like I always say when I speak, I’m obliged to talk about doping. We have to stop this, but we are damaging our reputation and our credibility with these cases. So please help us to end this terrible virus, I want to call it, because I know it can’t be stopped, so we’re counting on you. “ said Annibol
The local organising committee has already completed route mapping which will for the 1st time see the introduction of a water sprinkler as part of the obstacles.
On the calibre of athletes and the prize money, Korir said. “We use the performance of the athletes that have been competing through the cross-country series. We pick the top 20 from that one, then we go now to the national championship that we had, and we actually agreed also in every category we picked 60 of those athletes who were in the top 20. From number one to number 60 because of the rankings they have. Because this is an invitation, we are not going to allow anybody else outside that. We also know that there’s a requirement from World Athletics that we have to send all the names of those who are participating to World Athletics and the AIU for verification.”
Athletes will battle in the mixed relay, 10 km senior races and the under-20 junior men and women races, with the winners of the senior races set to be rewarded 780,000 Kenya shillings while the silver medallist will pocket 650,000 kenya shillings .
Bronze medallists will be rewarded 520,000 kenya shillings with the prize money trickling down to the athletes in the 15th position , who will get 26,000 Kenya shillings.
Absa Bank Kenya Regional Manager Julius Songok, unveiled a Ksh 11 million sponsorship towards this year’s edition.
Absa Sirikwa Cross Country is the only gold label cross country competition in Africa and was introduced in the World Athletics calendar in 2022.
The competition has also attracted local and international athletes from Poland, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ukraine and India.
