Olympic champion cites limited training time after Monaco Diamond League
Olympic 1,500m champion Faith Kipyegon has withdrawn from the second leg of the Diamond League set for Stockholm on Sunday, August 23.
Kipyegon said she decided to withdraw from the meeting due to limited training time after participating in the Monaco meet.
Kipyegon said her management communicated telling her to withdraw.
“I saw it wise to withdraw since I didn’t want to put up an embarrassing performance.
I had not done enough training and I thought the remaining period wasn’t enough,” Kipyegon told People Sport from Eldoret.
During the first leg of the Monaco meet, Kipyegon stormed to victory in the women’s 1,000m in 2:29.15 beating European champion Laura Muir who came second in 2:30.82 as the world 800m champion Halimah Nakaayi faded to fifth in 2:32.12.
She was making her debut in Monaco, her first competitive appearance since clinching silver at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, in a time of 3:54.22, more than two seconds behind Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands.
She was to compete in the 1,500m where six women who have run sub-four minutes are entered.
Kipyegon, who has a personal best of 3:54.22, a national record, who would have faced off with Scottish record holder Laura Muir (3:55.22) who was seen as her closest challenger.
This means world 5000m champion Hellen Obiri will fly Kenya’s flag (3:57.05) alongside Chebet Winny (3:58.20) in the event.
Obiri set a new meeting record over the distance in Monaco when she clocked 14:22.12, outsprinting world 10,000m silver medalist Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia.
Gidey placed second in 14:26.57 as Commonwealth Games bronze medalist Laura Weightman settled for the third spot in 14:35.44.
Uganda’s Nanyondo Winnie(3:59.56) and Great Britain’s Wightman Laura (4:00.17) are also expected to run.
In the men’s 800m Donavan Brazier (1:42.34) of the US and Canadian Marco Arop, who just ran a new personal best of 1:44.14, are entered.
Timothy Cheruiyot leads the men’s 1,500m race with a personal best of 3:28.41 set two years ago in Monaco. He ran nearly that fastest time this year with a 3:28:45 at the same meet.
But he will have his hands full with Norweigan Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who enters with a best of 3:28.68, which he ran in Monaco last week, also competing.
