With the Tokyo Olympics on the horizon, we are now deep into Olympic Trials Season. We’ve already seen drama around Mo Farah’s failure (thus far) to qualify for Team GB in the 10k, and now news is breaking from Kenya about some seriously exciting performances in their trials.
Situated at 1795m, the amount of oxygen available to athletes in Nairobi is reduced by about 15%. Despite this, two time NY Marathon winner, Geoffrey Kamworor romped to victory in Kasarani, clocking 27:01.06 for 10,000m, 27 seconds under the qualifying standard. A world leading standard in itself, the time converts to a 26:16.22 at sea level, which is an astounding 2:38 per km, or 4:14 per mile and would be just 5s outside of the current world record.
The East African’s have enjoyed a lot of success recently, with World Records over 5 and 10,000m coming thick and fast after a year of hard training at high altitude. When the world’s best come together in Tokyo this summer, we can expect some fireworks.
