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Then a 20-year-old, Cheptegei exploded into the 10km race and led for the most part but things turned down south in the final 1km.
Every successful man has a motivating story to his journey. For Joshua Cheptegei, the collapse at the 2017 World Cross Country championships made him better, he says.
Cheptegei went into the 2017 championships on home soil at Kololo as Uganda’s favourite to shake the Kenyan dominance. Then a 20-year-old, Cheptegei exploded into the 10km race and led for the most part but things turned down south in the final 1km.
The youngster burnt out and faded away abruptly allowing the Kenyan duo of Geoffrey Kamworor and Leonard Kiplimo and Ethiopian Hadis Abadi to overtake and beat him to the podium. Cheptegei, to the disappointment of Ugandans, finish at a distant 30th, 1 minute and 44 seconds late.
He bounced back from that setback to win the 2019 edition in of Aarhus in Denmark. In between there, Cheptegei won silver at the 2017 IAAF World Athletics in London.
The Olympic champion, who is in Australia to defend his title at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships Bathurst 2023 on Saturday says the unfortunate events in 2017 shaped him.
“Sometimes you have to accept what life throws at you and then learn from it,” Cheptegei said during the pre-race presser held by the organisers.
“I can proudly say that I am a better athlete because of the incident in 2017. It taught me a lot of lessons about my life and my career. When you want something in life, it’s important to chase your goals, but you also have to be patient and make certain judgements.”
Cheptegei will face stiff competition in his title defense with two-time champion Kamworor, 2019 Silver medallist and compatriot Jacob Kiplimo and the reigning Olympic 10,000 champion Selemon Barega all present.
The Saturday race is scheduled to start at 10.30 am East African time.
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