Why Tokyo will be tough to match in Paris

Kiprotich wasn’t even a favourite for the event but just a year after his 42km debut, he won Uganda’s only second Olympic gold medal then on August 12, 2012.

Sweet Tokyo memories

Now 12 years later, the Olympics are back in Europe with France’s capital hosting the Games for a third time. Uganda will participate at the quadrennial Games in Paris for the first-time ever with a bunch of 25 competitors.

The edition comes on the back of a marvelous show for Uganda at the recent Olympics in Japan three years ago. Uganda won four medals at the Tokyo 2020 edition, capping the best display ever for the East African country in the history of the Games.

Joshua Cheptegei scooped men’s 10000m silver and a 5000m gold, Jacob Kiplimo pocketed 10000m bronze and Peruth Chemutai won the 3000m steeplechase gold medal.

The celebrations for that athletics trio in an empty Tokyo Stadium are still fresh in memory. Cheptegei had arrived in Tokyo as the favourite, after winning the 25-lap world title at the Doha World Athletics Championships in Qatar.

Cheptegei arrived in Tokyo on the back of breaking Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele’s 5000m and 10000m world records (WR), which he still holds to-date.

Tokyo still hurts Cheptegei

However, he took a cautious approach against the beaming conditions in Tokyo, and a resultant slow race offered about seven men a chance to kick at the bell, Ethiopian Selemon Barega eventually winning the 10000m gold.

If one has followed Cheptegei closely, he has never settled since missing that medal. Kiplimo, then 20, arrived in Tokyo on the back of silver medal at the 2019 World Cross-country Championships in Aarhus, Denmark and then the gold medal at the 2020 World Half-Marathon Championships in Gdynia, Poland.

For Chemutai, there were minimal signs she could produce the country’s first-ever Olympic medal by a female athlete.

Even with world record holder Kenyan Beatrice Chepkoech’s struggles that, Chemutai had been in the shadows of the likes of other Kenyans Hyvin Kiyeng and Norah Jeruto as well as Ethiopian Mekides Abebe and Kenyan-born Bahraini Winfred Yavi Mutile.

Did Bellingham copy Chemutai?

Chemutai just broke her big shell, powering to victory over the barriers with a national record time of 9:01.45 on August 4, 2021. 

It feels like her celebration, with arms wide open in the air like Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham, only happened yesterday.

Three years later, the conversations have changed direction. However, the trio of Chemutai, Kiplimo and Cheptegei are still Uganda’s favourites for silverware when the hunt begins today.

And that’s notwithstanding the rest of the group whose action begins with rower Kathleen Noble in Heat 1 of the women’s single sculls at the National Olympic Nautical Stadium of Île-de-France in Vaires-sur-Marne this morning.

Swimmers Gloria Muzito and Jesse Ssengonzi will follow in the women’s 100m freestyle on July 30 and the men’s 100m butterfly on August 2 in turn.

By competing in the men’s road race next Saturday, Charles Kagimu will be Uganda’s first cyclist at the Olympics in 40 years.

Athletics forms the biggest part of the Team Uganda contingent and 21 runners are entered. The action begins on Friday with Halimah Nakaayi first on the Stade de France purple track in the women’s 800m Heats.

Eyes on Cheptegei, again

The men’s 10000m final comes up in the evening program of the day and that’s where Uganda’s main hopes lay, in Cheptegei’s spikes.

After careful consideration and planning with his Dutch coach Addy Ruiter and management Global Sports Communication (GSC), this will mark Cheptegei’s final track race before turning focus to marathon running.

It has been a rather long yet successful decade of long-distance track dominance. “It is the only (Olympic 10000m gold) medal he is missing in his cabinet,” Ruiter said in a recent interaction.

Winning in Paris certainly will not be a cakewalk affair. In his last competitive race, Cheptegei withered to finish ninth in the 5000m race at the Bislett Games - the Oslo leg of the Wanda Diamond League (DL) in Norway - on May 30.

After posting 12 minutes and 51.94 seconds, Cheptegei had given the doubters something to believe in. His final race before Paris only meant he is not assured of anything.

Experienced Ethiopian Hagos Gebrhiwet had redefined himself to win in 12:36.73, the second fastest time ever, just behind Cheptegei’s WR mark of 12:35.36. The Ethiopian cast behind Gebrhiwet had Yomif Kejelcha in second, Addisu Yihune in fifth.

Huge Ethiopian challenge

That must have sent a huge warning to Cheptegei that he may probably have to surrender his 5000m Olympic title without a fight and concentrate on the 10000m, his best race.

During the pre-event press conference a day before, the reigning world 5000m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen from Norway had told Cheptegei that winning both gold medals in Paris “won’t be easy”.

There are plans to do the double again in Paris but Cheptegei’s priority remains on the longer race. Ruiter reasoned that Cheptegei had spent a lot of time at sea level in the Netherlands before competing in Oslo.

He stayed over in Nijmegen after posting 12:52.38 in third place over the 5000m during the Los Angeles Grand Prix in California, USA on May 17. In Los Angeles, Barega and compatriot Berihu Aregawi did a 1-2 while Kiplimo was fourth.

The 10000m showdown will be a Uganda - Ethiopia affair. Aregawi, Barega and Kejelcha have been entered while Cheptegei will have the company of Kiplimo and youngster Martin Kiprotich.

Change in tactics

In Tokyo, Cheptegei had training partner Stephen Kissa for company but when the latter took a fast pace early, the rest of the field did not follow him. Instead, they stayed with Cheptegei at the back.

When Cheptegei realized it was time to go, with an awakening from Kiplimo, the race was gone. Barega won in a time of 27:43.22, so slow that about seven men had a sight of the gold medal upon the bell.

In Paris, things will be different. The past two months of work will determine how Cheptegei controls the race. He has exorcised those Tokyo demons twice, winning the 10000m title at the Oregon 2022 and Budapest 2023 editions of the World Championships in the USA and Hungary respectively.

Kiplimo, now two-time reigning World Cross-country champion, will try to control the first half of the race, like he did in the 5000m final in Tokyo.

The goal for three-time reigning 10000m champion Cheptegei is to run a fast race, a time good enough or close to his WR mark of 26:11:00, meaning he will need to trim off a minute off the time Barega won in Tokyo. Barega ran 53.94 seconds for the final lap but a quicker one has been practiced in Kapchorwa.

5000m load for Kiplimo

Should Cheptegei seal his legacy with the gold, the medal quest in the 5000m will be Kiplimo’s shoulders. After Tokyo, Kiplimo was honest enough to say he had been tired by the time the 12-and-a-half-lap final came.

Before Japan, Kiplimo had only doubled previously once - at the 2018 World Athletics U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland. After Tokyo, Kiplimo doubled successfully and won the Commonwealth 5000m and 10000m titles in Birmingham, England two years ago.

There will be familiar questions from Ingebrigtsen, Kenyans Jacob Krop and Ronald Kwemoi, Guatemalan Luis Grijalva, Gebrhiwet and American Grant Fisher.

But Kiplimo, who missed last year's Budapest Worlds due to an acute injury, will need support from his half-brother Oscar Chelimo, who won a 5000m bronze medal at the Oregon Worlds two years ago.

Onto the women’s 3000m steeplechase, whereas Cheptegei has since hibernated to focus on his mission, Chemutai has been a little freer.

Chemutai eyes gold again

And her confidence is high after posting the fastest time in the world over the water-jump race this year - 8:55.09 - while winning the DL leg in Eugene, USA on May 25.

She began her season early enough, picking a silver medal behind Chepkoech at the African Games in Ghana’s capital Accra. Twice later, Chemutai finished behind Chepkoech during the Xiamen and Suzhou legs of the DL in China in April.

The win in Eugene and the Olympic gold are the only two times Chemutai has beaten the vastly experienced Chepkoech. The latter is in a better shape than Tokyo but, the last 1000m over the barriers will determine it all.

Uganda could scoop more silverware should world and Commonwealth marathon champion Victor Kiplangat, in company of national record (NR) holder Kissa and Andrew Kwemoi, produce a spectacle against Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge in the men’s marathon final on August 10.

Before then, Nakaayi has a chance to etch her name in history should her calculations in the inside lane go perfect when she competes over the two-lap distance.

In the absence of Olympic champion American Athing Mu who failed to qualify for Paris, Nakaayi boasts of enough experience to challenge anyone beyond world champion Kenyan Mary Moraa and the in-form Briton Keely Hodgkinson.

Nakaayi is encouraged by her new NR of 1:57.26 at the London DL last weekend, the fourth she has set in a space of just over a year. US-based Tarsis Orogot, the first Ugandan male sprinter at the Olympics in 28 years, will pray for a lane in the 200m final and only dream at the finish-line.

TEAM UGANDA TO PARIS 2024 GAMES

Athletics: Tarsis Orogot (200m), Tom Dradriga (800m), Oscar Chelimo (5000m), Jacob Kiplimo (5000m & 10000m), Joshua Cheptegei (5000m & 10000m), Martin Magengo Kiprotich (10000m), Leonard Chemutai (3000m steeplechase), Victor Kiplangat, Stephen Kissa and Andrew Rotich Kwemoi (All Marathon), Halimah Nakaayi (800m), Winnie Nanyondo (1500m), Sarah Chelangat (5000m & 10000m), Joy Cheptoyek (5000m & 10000m), Belinda Chemutai & Esther Chebet (5000m), Annet Chemengich Chelangat (10000m), Peruth Chemutai (3000m steeplechase), Stella Chesang, Mercyline Chelangat, and Rebecca Chelangat (All Marathon)

Cycling: Charles Kagimu (Men’s Road Race)

Rowing: Kathleen Grace Noble (Women’s Single Sculls)

Swimming: Gloria Muzito (100m Freestyle), Jesse Ssengonzi (100m Butterfly)

TEAM UGANDA COACHES

Cycling: Ssaka Bukenya (tentative)

Rowing: Prof. James Martinez, Batenga Nakisozi

Swimming: Tonnie Kasujja

Athletics: Benjamin Njia, Peter Chelangat, Grace Chesang, Faustino Kiwa, Paul Okello, Adrianus Ruiter

UGANDA’S MEDALS AT OLYMPICS

1968 Mexico City: Eridadi Mukwanga (Bantamweight Silver)

1968 Mexico City: Leo Rwabwogo (Flyweight Bronze)

1972 Munich: John Akii-Bua (400m Hurdles Gold)

1972 Munich: Leo Rwabwogo (Flyweight Silver)

1980 Moscow: John Mugabi (Welterweight Silver)

1996 Atlanta: Davis Kamoga (400m Bronze)

2012 London: Stephen Kiprotich (Marathon Gold)

2020 Tokyo: Joshua Cheptegei (10000m Silver)

2020 Tokyo: Jacob Kiplimo (10000m Bronze)

2020 Tokyo: Peruth Chemutai (3000m Steeplechase Gold)

2020 Tokyo: Joshua Cheptegei (5000m Gold)

2024 OLYMPICS NOTEBOOK

Host city: Paris, France

City Hosting: 3rd (1900, 1924, 2024)

Motto: Ouvrons grand les Jeux (Games wide open)

Events: 329 in 32 sports

Dates: Jul 26 - Aug 11, 2024

Team Uganda Contingent: 25 competitors

UOC Sponsors: Nile Breweries, Plascon, Sanlam, Multichoice, French Embassy in Uganda

Opening Ceremony: Jardins du Trocadéro and the Seine

Closing Ceremony: Stade de France