Great rivalry will likely play out when Olympic and world medallists face-off in men’s javelin at the Absa Kip Keino Classic this Saturday at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.
Two-time reigning world champion, Anderson Peters from Grenada, brings the battle to the doorstep of the 2015 world champion Julius Yego and meet defending champion Ihab Abdelrahman from Egypt.
The 25-year-old Peters is making his maiden tour of Africa.
Peters has a personal best of 93.07 metres that ranks him fifth on the all-time best list. He won his first world title in 2019 Doha with a throw of 86.89m before retaining the title last year in Eugene with a throw of 90.54m.
That victory saw Peters make history as the only other person to have defended his world title after Jan Zelezny from Czech, who won in 1993 Stuttgart and 1995 Gothenburg.
Peters floored both Yego, the 2015 Beijing world champion and 2016 Rio Olympics silver medallist, and Abdelrahman in both events.
In Eugene, as Peters won with a 90.54m effort, Abdelrahman settled for 12th place with a 75.99m throw while Yego, the Africa record holder, lost in the preliminaries.
Yego, who is ranked sixth in the all-time best list in the history of javelin on 92.72m from his victory at 2015 Beijing world event, and Anderson Peters met on Friday at the Doha Diamond League.
Peters finished third with a season best 85.88m behind winner, Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra (88.67m-WL) from India and Olympic silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch (88.63m) of Czech.
Yego committed fouls thrice to leave the Doha competition without a score.
“I didn’t have a good show in Doha, two faults and one outside…I don’t want to dwell on bygones and hope all will go well at home,” said Yego, who had not competed since the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
It was Yego’s first Diamond League competition since Shanghai in May 2019.
“Kip Keino Classic will be a good field with the world champion and my continental rival Abdelrahman in attendance. It’s bound to be an exciting competition,” said Yego.
Abdelrahman returned a season’s best 83.79m to win at Kip Keino Classic last year, beating Yego to second place on 79.59m as South Africa’s Johann Grobler managed 79.11m for third place.
Also in the mix are the 2022 world under- 20 champion Artur Felfner (84.32m) from Poland, Portugal national champion Leandro Ramos (84.78m), who is fresh from winning European (Winter) Throwing Cup in March, and South Africa national champion Douw Smit (81.47m).
After Eugene, Yego and Peters took their rivalry to Birmingham Commonwealth Games last year in Great Britain where Grenadian claimed silver in 88.64m after bronze in 2018 Gold Coast while the Kenyan settled for bronze with a 85.70m haul.
Yego failed to make the final in Gold Coast.
