NEW YORK HELD SURPRISES FOR GOLD MEDALLIST KIPROP
By David Monti
(c) 2010 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - used with permission

NEW YORK (30-Jan) -- Like Bernard Lagat back in 2001, Olympic 1500m gold medallist Asbel Kiprop came to this city for the first time to run the Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games.  As Lagat found, competing in the Big Apple can be full of surprises, like Madison Square Garden's 145.5-meter track.

"This is my first time running indoor," Kiprop said in an interview last night.  "I don't know about a small and a big track indoors, this is my first time ever."

When Kiprop got to the Garden last night and saw the track, he was a little take aback.  "It was really small," he said. "And I was told the track is around 150 meters." But he knew he was there to do a job.  "I just wanted to run like everybody," he said.

Kiprop also got a stinging surprise when Lagat surged past him with one lap to go in the 11-lap race to win his eighth Wanamaker Mile.  "It was really a surprise," Kiprop said.  "I never knew he is still strong the way he is, compared with how he was running in 2008, you know? He's really different this year."

But perhaps the biggest surprise for Kiprop came from Mother Nature: he wasn't aware it was cold in New York in January.  He didn't bring any cold weather gear with him, and yesterday was bitterly cold.

"The there is the fact that it is winter here," he said wearing a borrowed down jacket after his race last night because he was having difficulty locating his track suit.  "I never knew, because I never experienced how winter is.  So, it was my first time to know winter here in New York."

Kiprop was a last minute replacement for Ethiopian Deresse Mekonnen, the 2008 world 1500m indoor champion.  When Kiprop was contacted by his manager, Federico Rosa, about coming to New York he was preparing for a completely different race in Europe on 10 February.

"My preparation was ahead of Stockholm where I was preparing to race at the 800-meters," he explained.  "It was really a surprise that I was racing today.  This is a miler who is preparing to do some 800."

Kiprop, 20, was elevated to the gold medal position in last summer's Beijing Olympics after Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain failed a doping test and was eventually stripped of his medal.  Despite achieving such a lofty goal at such a young age, Kiprop has already set his sights on new goals.

"I'm really proud of it that I am an Olympic champion," Kiprop said softly.  "I need to do something better, to improve my times at 1500-meters."

ENDS