Kazakhstani Caroline Kipkirui to battle it out with Sifan Hassan at FBK Games

ATHLETICS Kazakhstani Caroline Kipkirui to battle it out with Sifan Hassan at FBK Games

Abigael Wafula 20:27 - 02.06.2023

Hassan ran a 10,000m world record of 29:06.82 at this event in 2021.

Reigning London Marathon champion Sifan Hassan will go head-to-head with Kenyan-born Kazakhstani Caroline Kipkirui in the women’s 10,000m at the FBK Games, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold, in Hengelo on Saturday 3, and Sunday 4 June.

Less than six weeks after taking victory at the London Marathon the Dutchwoman will be back on the track on Saturday for the women’s 10,000m, the sole race that evening, before contesting the 1500m on Sunday.

“After the London Marathon, it was of course a question of how my body would recover and respond to the track training. I would like to run 10,000m to see how I am doing,” Hassan said, as quoted by World Athletics.

Hassan ran a 10,000m world record of 29:06.82 at this event in 2021, which was broken by Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia with 29:01.03 just two days later.

On her part, Kipkurui has opened her season with a win at the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships over the 3000m race. She then went for the Okpekpe Road Race where won the 10km race.

The field has also attracted Ethiopia’s Tsigie Gebreselama, a silver medallist at the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, Australia, earlier this year, who ran her Personal Best of 30:06.01 behind Hassan in Hengelo two years ago.

Another Dutch star, Femke Bol, will draw huge support from the home crowd as she contests her first flat 400m of the outdoor season, having broken the indoor world record with 49.26 at the Dutch national championships in February. Belgium’s Cynthia Bolingo and USA’s Wadeline Jonathas are among her rivals.

The men’s 100m sees USA’s Marvin Bracy-Williams arrive in fine form, having clocked 9.93 (0.8m/s) earlier this week in Montreuil, France. Fellow US sprinter Ronnie Baker, Britain’s Reece Prescod, and Jamaica’s Yohan Blake are also in the field.

Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh is the star attraction in the women’s high jump. She remains the only athlete to go over two meters in the event this outdoor season, jumping 2.01m to take victory in Rabat last weekend. Her compatriots Yuliia Levchenko and Iryna Gerashchenko could prove her toughest opponents.

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