Angelline Nyiransabimana is in action today as the 11th IAAF World Championships gets into the heat stages in Osaka, Japan. Nyiransabimana will fly Rwandan flag in ‘heat two’ of the women 5000m heats inside Nagai stadium 10pm local time. The 20-year old is the 5000m national champion and she makes her debut at the world championship hoping to improve on her personal best of 16:04:26. All top heat two favorite athletes from East African region outpaced her finishing on seventh position in this year’s All Africa Games which were held in Algiers, Algeria. The event has fourteen entrants and the four fastest entrants are Ethiopian pair, Meseret Defar (14:16:63), Meselech Melkamu (14:33:83), Morocco’s Mariem Alaoui Selsouli (14:36:52) and Kenya’s Priscah Cherono (14:42:00). Meseret is the 5000m defending champion and she will also be looking forward to defend her title in Osaka. Heat one is comprised of favorites; Kenya’s Sylvia Kibet, Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba and Tanzania’s Zakia Mrisho Mohamed. Nyiransabimana will try her best to overturn what happened during the All Africa Games last July. The first five of each heat and the best five athletes with the fastest time will automatically qualify to the final. But this event won’t be about speed only; it will be a war of attrition, of patience and strategy. Despite the early late time, the runners will have to cope most of the way with the intense Osaka evening heat, even if the night is cloudy, the temperature will be close to 30 degrees Celsius. Ends
