Ismael Kirui

Ismael Kirui
nation	Kenya
birthday	20th February 1975
place of birth	Kapcherop
Career
discipline	Long distance running
Best performance	13:02.75 min ( 5000 m ) 27:06.59 min ( 10,000 m )
status	resigned
Medal table
World championships 2 × 0 × 0 × Junior World Championship 0 × 1 × 0 ×
World championships gold Stuttgart 1993 5000 m gold Gothenburg 1995 5000 m  Junior World Championships silver Plovdiv 1990 10,000 m

Ismael Kirui (born February 20, 1975 in Kapcherop in the Marakwet district ) is a former Kenyan long-distance runner .

In 1990, Ismael Kirui finished second at the Junior World Championships in the 10,000 meter run behind his brother Richard Chelimo . In 1992 he became junior world champion in cross country and vice junior world champion over 5000 meters .

The following year he won the World Championships in Stuttgart at the age of 18 years and 177 days with the junior world record of 13: 02.75 minutes in a Kenyan speed race, in which he was the only one to keep the pace to the finish. While his two compatriots Paul Bitok and Michael Chesire fell far behind in the end, the three Ethiopians Haile Gebrselassie , Fita Bayisa and Worku Bikila caught up a lot. Gebrselassie was only 42 hundredths of a second behind in second.

Two years later at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg , the pace was significantly slowed on the first laps. In the second half of the race there was an improvement run with a long final sprint. Kirui defended his title from Stuttgart in 13: 16.77 minutes before the Moroccan Khalid Boulami , who was just as close as Gebrselassie two years earlier.

At the Cross Country World Championships Ismael Kirui won bronze in the senior category in 1993, silver in 1995 and bronze again in 1996. At these three starts he won gold with the Kenyan team. In 1998 he was seventh again at the World Cross Country Championships. In this race, however, he was not one of the top four Kenyans, so that he was denied team gold.

Kirui is 1.60 m tall and weighed 54 kg at competition times. He has been married to Rose Cheruiyot since 1996 , who was also a 5000 meter runner at the time and is now successful on the marathon route. They have three children together. Ismael Kirui is also the brother of Richard Chelimo , who won the Olympic 10,000 meters in 1992, and his half-sister Catherine Kirui is also successful as a long-distance runner. His cousin Moses Kiptanui was three times world champion in the obstacle course.

Top performances

• 3000 m : 7: 39.82 min, August 27, 1993, Berlin
• 5000 m: 13: 02.75 min, August 16, 1993, Stuttgart ; August 16, 1995, Zurich
• 10,000 m: 27: 06.59 min, 25 August 1995, Brussels
• 15 km road run : 42:42 min, May 3, 1998, La Courneuve

literature

• Peter Matthews (Ed.): Athletics 1996. Surbiton 1996, ISBN 1899807-01-2

Web links

• Ismael Kirui in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Ismael Kirui on sporting-heroes.net
• A Kenyan XC legend - Ismael Kirui ( Memento from April 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), portrait on the IAAF website, March 22, 2007