Olympic Games hopeful Emmaculate Anyango names her role model

Kenya’s middle-distance runner Emmaculate Anyango has disclosed her role model as she continues her preparations for the congested athletics calendar. 

Anyango, who started training while in primary school, stated that two-time world champion Hellen Obiri is the athlete she looks up to.

“Hellen Obiri is the one. She is giving me that morale that I can do it. So, many times I used to watch her step by step. I used to work hard to be like Helen,” she commented during an interview with the Elite Running Team. 

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The 2023 Meeting Gala Fernanda Ribeiro winner is seen by most people as Obiri’s perfect replacement in Kenya’s track and field team.

Obiri switched to road racing several months ago after a stellar career that saw her bag two gold medals for the country in 5000m at the World Athletics Championships.

She successively won those titles at the 2017 London and 2019 Doha editions respectively. 

Some of the other titles that the mother of one won for the East African Athletics powerhouse include two Olympic Games silver medals and a similar number of African Championships gold medals.

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Obiri, who moved to the USA after venturing into marathons, has also clinched the World Athletics Relays Championships 4 x 1500m team title and a 5,000m Commonwealth Games title.

In individual races, she has already secured two world marathon majors titles with those victories both coming in 2023 at the Boston and New York City marathons.

Anyango has all it takes to fill the void left by Obiri as shown by the impressive performances she continues to register.

The athlete who trains in Iten under the watchful eyes of Coach Ken Rotich recently won the Sirikwa Classic World Tour Cross Country Title, leading from the gun to the tape.

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She also settled for a second-place position behind the reigning 10km world record holder Agnes Jebet Ngetich at the 10K Ibercaja road race held in Valencia, Spain, becoming just the second woman in history to run the distance under 29 minutes.

According to Anyango, she did not expect to run 28:57 in Valencia but her hard work paid off in the end.

“My expectation was to run 29, I didn’t expect to run 28, but I really thank God for that. After 5km we were pushing, then the people on the road told us that we were inside the record pace, so we started pushing more,” she elucidated.

The Iten-based athlete is currently preparing for the World Athletics Cross Country Championships and the Paris Olympic Games. 

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