BAHRAIN won three medals last night, including one silver and two bronze, in the IAAF/Trinidad Alfonso World Half Marathon Championships 2018, held in Valencia, Spain.
Abraham Naibei Cheroben put on a fantastic run in capturing the men’s individual silver medal. His podium finish helped Bahrain claim the bronze medal on the men’s teams’ category.
Meanwhile, Bahrain’s elite women also worked hard yesterday in coming away with their teams’ bronze medal. Four women were each in the top 10 and everyone on the five-member squad were in the top 14 overall.
With those results, Bahrain finished third on the overall medals table, which featured just four nations in total. The others were Ethiopia, who won three gold; Kenya who claimed one gold, three silver and one bronze medal, and Eritrea who claimed one bronze medal.
In the men’s race, Cheroben picked up his pace over the event’s final stage and was just 14 seconds behind the leader with one kilometre to go. It was too much of a gap in the end and the Bahraini had to settle for the silver medal after completing his race in one hour 22 seconds, which was a new season’s best.
Geoffrey Kipsang Kamworor of Kenya won in one hour and two seconds. Taking the third and the final podium step was Aron Kifle of Eritrea, who finished in 1:00:31.
Dominant
From fourth through sixth were all Ethiopians, while Bahrain’s next finisher came 11th overall in Aweke Ayalew in a personal best of 1:01:09. Fellow-Bahraini Albert Rop was 13th in 1:01:21, and El hassan El Abbassi came 21st in 1:01:41.
Their results helped Bahrain take third amongst men’s teams with a total time of 3:02:52. Ethiopia were first in 3:02:14 while Kenya finished second in 3:02:40.
On the distaff, Bahrain’s Eunice Chumba came close to finishing in the top three but had to make do with fourth overall in her season’s best time of 1:07:17. Three other Bahrainis were in the top 10, including Desi Mokonin in seventh in 1:08:10, Dalila Abdulkadir in ninth in 1:08:12 and Shitaye Eshete in 10th with a mark of 1:08:25. All three Bahrainis clocked new personal bests in the race.
Classified 14th overall in her season’s best time was Rose Chelimo in 1:10:20.
Bahrain’s third placing amongst the women’s teams saw them with a mark of 3:23:39. Ethiopia were first in 3:22:27 and Kenya second in 3:23:02.
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