The 3,000-meter steeplechase at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo
Three Thousand Metre Steeplechase for women.
The steeplechaser who has been dominant in recent years hasn’t been quite as strong in 2021, leaving the door wide open for anyone to win the event in Tokyo.
In 2018, Beatrice Chepkoech ran an 8:44.32 to set a new world record. In 2019, she ran an 8:57.84 to set a new championship record and win the global title by nearly five seconds.
Both at the 2016 Olympics and the 2017 World Championships, she placed fourth despite losing valuable time by missing a barrier.
She Quickly got back on Track, and in 2018 and 2019, She won 17 of 19 races.
She also holds the record for the steeplechase, having run it in under nine minutes on two separate occasions.
But the Kenyan hasn’t won a single steeplechase race in 2021, despite a promising start that included a world record of 14:43 over 5km and an indoor 3000m PB of 8:31.72 just three days later. At the Wanda Diamond League event in Monaco, she ran a 9:04.94, her best time of the season.
Hyvin Kiyeng, another Countrywoman, Came out on top in a Thrilling Race.
Human error with the lap counting caused Kiyeng to underestimate her remaining laps, therefore she began her final kick a lap early.
As she heard the bell for the actual final lap, she realised her error and mustered the strength to hold on to her lead, eventually finishing in a season-best time of 9 minutes, 3.82 seconds.
The World Championship
In 2015, Kiyeng won the world championship. In 2016, he won silver at the Olympics and bronze the following year. Although she started the year off with a disappointing fourth-place finish in Doha, she has since gone on to win three races, all while besting Chepkoech.
In addition, Kiyeng will be a serious threat in Tokyo if she can defeat a world record holder and world champion while botching her finishing kick, like she did in Monaco.
Her 2016 personal best time is 9 minutes and 0.01 seconds, and she may be able to break that barrier.
Unexpectedly, African Games champion Mekides Abebe, who ran 9 minutes and 2.52 seconds at the Wanda Diamond League meet in Doha, is the fastest of the entrants. Both the Ethiopian Championships in Addis Ababa and the Ethiopian Olympic Trials in Hengelo were her only other races this year, but she won both.
Despite being only 19, Abebe is the eldest of Ethiopia’s steeplechase competitors. Lomi Muleta, who ran a personal best of 9:14.03 this year, and Zerfe Wondemagegn, who ran a national U20 record of 9:16.95 in Hengelo, will join her in Tokyo. All three ladies will be making their Olympic debuts at a relatively early age, yet they all represented Ethiopia at the 2019 World Championships.
American Gold Medalist Emma Coburn is Expected to Compete again.
Coburn is consistently among the medal contenders at the most prestigious competitions. He won a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics, was crowned world champion in 2017, and won silver in the 2019 World Championships.
At the penultimate Wanda Diamond League meeting before the Olympics, she finished fourth in 9 minutes and 9.02 seconds after falling at the final water jump.
Coburn had been watching Kiyeng’s mistake and was beginning to reel in the Kenyan when she fell on the ground.
However, there is no assurance that Coburn would have won the race had she remained on her feet. The bottom line is that Coburn will be in the medal mix if she avoids that particular blunder in Tokyo.
Championship Competition also Features the formidable Gesa-Felicitas Krause.
The German won two gold medals at the European Championships in 2016 and 2018, and two bronze medals at the World Championships in 2015 and 2019.
Krause has a season’s best of 9 minutes, 9.13 seconds as she goes to Tokyo, and she’s more than certainly going to break that record; in all but one of her 10 seasons between 2010 and 2019, Krause’s fastest timings of the year were established in championship finals.
After coming up short in the medals at the World Championships in Doha, Bahrain’s Winfred Yavi had some measure of redemption at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in the Qatari capital earlier this year, where she ran a personal best of 9:02.64 and bested Kiyeng, Coburn, and Krause.
Conclusion
Courtney Frerichs, who set the North American mark in 2017 and won silver at the global championships, and Bojana Vrhovnik, who set the Slovenian record in 2016, could both compete in the Marusa Mismas-Zrimsek; Purity Kirui, the 2014 Commonwealth champion; Genevieve Gregson of Australia, the Oceania record holder; Zhang Xinyan, the China record holder; Peruth Chemutai, the Uganda record holder; and the world record holder, Peruth Chemutai.
