WU20: Chepkirui, Chebet on course for 1500m title defence

World under-20 1500m champion and the Africa Championships silver medalist in the distance Purity Chepkirui endured stiff competition in the heats to make it to the final of the ongoing junior championship in Cali, Colombia. 

Chepkirui will be joined in the final by compatriot Brenda Chebet who convincingly won her heat to book a place in the final set for Sunday midnight. 

The defending champion, Chepkirui had a slow start, going to the back after the gun where she stayed for the first lap of the race. 

She moved to the middle and again to second place in the next lap at what point the field begun to split into two and she stayed on the shoulder of Ethiopian Mebriht Mekonen. 

Despite taking the gun in second, Chepkirui went on to finish third in 4:19.94 behind Mekonen who clocked 4:18.97 to win the heat ahead of American Addison Wileh who out-sprinted the Kenyan for second in 4:19.39. 

Chebet's game plan was to head the field and control the race from gun, something the 4:05.50 athlete executed perfectly in her heat to take a comfortable 4:12. 20 the quickest qualification time.

Turkey's Dilek Kocak was second in a new personal best time of 4:14.90 while Japan's Yuga Sawada completed the automatic qualification positions with a 4:15.29, a personal best. 

WU20: Kibet, Kiptoo through to 800m semis

Ethiopia has the two quickest U-20 women in the world this year with Birke Haylom who won the second heat in 4:18.06 the fastest of the two. 

Haylom, 16, ran her Personal Best (PB) of 4:02.25 at altitude in Nairobi back in May. Mekonen ran her PB of 4:03.29 to finish seventh in Ostrava back in May, and she followed that up with a 4:03.60 in Montreuil, France, just two days later.