Kenya

Oregon 2014: Nyairera Wambui stuns Diago for 800m Gold

Kenyan Margaret Nyairera wins the women’s 800m in a personal best time of 2:00.49 at the 2014 IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene – Oregon 2014.

Kenyan Margaret Nyairera wins the women's 800m in a personal best time of 2:00.49 at the 2014 IAAF World Junior Championships - Oregon 2014. Photo credit: Jeffrey Mercado

Kenya’s Margaret Nyairera Wambui ran the race of her life, three seconds faster than her previous lifetime best which she set in the semifinal, to win over two laps of the track in 2:00.49 at the IAAF World Junior Championships – Oregon 2014.

In her first season of high level competition, the 17-year-old sprinted away from Cuba’s pre-race favourite Sahily Diago, attacking from 70 metres out, to claim Kenya’s fourth junior title in the women’s 800m but the first one in 12 years.

Iceland’s Anita Hinriksdottir went out astonishingly hard and broke the group into two as she hit the first 200 metres in 27.24 and covered the first lap in a blistering 56.33 as Kenya’s Maximila Imali bowed out of the fight for the medals after falling 150 metres into the race.

The world youth and European junior champion could not sustain her pace and at just before 550 metres Hinriksdottir started to flag badly, before Wambui and Diago closed the five-metre advantage she held and swept past her midway down the back straight.

After covering 600m in 1:27.87, Wambui and Diago continued to battle around the bend before entering the final stretch, where the former proved too strong for the Cuban, crossing the line in the second-fastest winning time in the history of the championships. Her time of 2:00.49 is also an African youth best.

Diago came home for second in 2:02.11, ahead of Australia’s Georgia Wassall, who came out on top of a duel with her compatriot Georgia Griffith for the bronze medal, stopping the clock in 2:02.71.

You May Also Like

Burundi

Francine Niyonsaba won the women’s 800m gold in a world-leading national indoor record of 2:00.01 for Burundi on final day at Portland 2016 -...

World

The recently-concluded IAAF World Junior Championships (Oregon 2014) in Eugene led to a huge increase in the IAAF website's usage when compared to the...

Galleria

Photo Gallery – A cross-section of African athletes competing at the 2014 IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene, Oregon, USA –July 22-27, 2014

Ethiopia

Alemitu Haroye led an Ethiopian one-two and outsprinted her team-mate Alemitu Hawi in the final stretch to win the women's 5000m at the 2014...

©2004-2024 All Rights Reserved / Powered by Yomog Sports + Media | AthleticsAfrica.com is the leading source for track and field athletics, road and mountain running news, events information, analysis, results, images and videos from Africa.

Exit mobile version