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Kenya's Tirop ready for world challenge in Spain' s cross country meeting

Xinhua, November 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

World Cross Country champion Agnes Tirop will launch her first international race in almost two years on Sunday during the Atapuerca race in Spanish city of Burgos.

Tirop suffered a knee and tendon injury on her way to victory during the finals of the women event in Guiyang, China last year. She has been in rehabilitation and only returned to form a month ago. She will be testing her form after shaking off her career threatening injury in Spain aiming to emerge victorious.

"It has been a long time and after going through that spell, you question yourself if you will ever come stronger and back to your form best form. But am happy that I can finally run again and want just to focus on my career," said the 22-year-old Tuesday in Nairobi.

The Atapuerca race will be the curtain raiser in the permit meeting endorsed by the IAAF. Kenya is the only African country that will host one of the eight rounds of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Cross Country Permit meeting.

Nairobi will host the only race in Africa on February 17, 2017 only three weeks before the world best distance runners converge in neighbouring Kampala, Uganda for the World Cross Country Championships in March 26.

"We are the only one hosting the series in the continent and we have the best athletes. It shows you how important this event is to us as Kenya," said Jackson Tuwei, the Athletics Kenya President.

The World Series has eight meetings in five different countries will kick off on Sunday with the Cross de Atapuerca in Spain.

During the course of the three months after Atapuerca, many of the world's finest distance runners will take part in the IAAF Cross Country Permit series before its conclusion at the Athletics Kenya Cross Country meeting in Nairobi.

The focus of all the leading runners competing in the series will be the IAAF World Cross Country Championships Kampala 2017, which will celebrate its 42nd edition on 26 March. Endit