2022 WORLD ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIPS 🇺🇸

📍 Eugene, USA
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Kazakhstan's Norah Jeruto produced a powerful home-straight charge to win the women's 3,000m steeplechase gold, as Ugandan Peruth Chemutai faded in day six action at the ongoing 2022 World Athletics Championships in the US city of Eugene, Oregon.

Jeruto clocked 8:53.02 to set a new championship record, with Ethiopian duo Werkuha Getachew and Mekides Abebe taking silver and bronze, respectively.

Getachew's 8:54.61 is a new Ethiopian record while Abebe registered a personal best time of 8:56.08.

Albanian Luiza Gega (9:10.04) and Great Britain's Aimee Pratt (9:15.64) set new national reocrds.

Chemutai finished in distant 11th place, coming in at 9:21.93, in a race featuring 2019 silver and bronze medallists Emma Coburn of USA and German Gesa Felicitas Krause.

The last event of the day got under way just before 8pm on Wednesday in Eugene, but already Thursday dawn thousands of miles away in Uganda.

Through the first water jump of this 7.5-lap obstacle race, Ugandan Olympic champion Chemutai tucked herself in fourth place behind leader Jeruto, Bahraini Winfred Mutile Yavi and American Coburn.

Two laps into the contest under humid conditions, the front four remained unchanged.

Soon, the toll of the barriers on the runners began to show, as the field started to stretch out into a jagged single file five minutes into the race, with Jeruto, Yavi and Getachew injecting more speed and 23-year-old Chemutai falling behind.

Chemutai negotiates the water jump as France's Alice Finot falls in the water

With two laps to go, Abebe joined the front fray as they broke farther and farther away from the chasing group.

Despite sustained pressure from her three closest challengers, Jeruto remained in charge. She felt Yavi attempt to peel away just after the bell, but the Bahraini stuttered at the final water jump, allowing Jeruto to break away on the home straight and hop over the final hurdle unchallenged to take gold in a new championship record.

Yavi's poor final water jump cost her valuable seconds - and consequently a medal - as she came up just short in fourth place behind the two Ethiopians.

This is how Jeruto celebrated her victory

To get to the final, Ugandan Chemutai had to leap her way through as one of the six non-automatic qualifiers on Saturday, after finishing fifth in the second heat.

Her time of 9:16.66 was the ninth-fastest across the three heats featuring 42 runners, and was enough to take her through.

The personal and season's best times of Uganda's only female Olympic medallist are 9:01.45 and 9:16.18, respectively.

Chebet comes up short in 5,000m

Earlier on the sixth day of these championships, Ugandan Esther Chebet raced for a place in the women's 5,000m final, but she failed to make the cut.

She was up against the likes of newly crowned 10,000m champion Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia and double Olympic and world champion Dutch Sifan Hassan in the second of two heats in the second event of the day's schedule.

While favorites Gidey and Hassan took two of the five automatic spots, Chebet was a distant finisher, down in 13th place in a cast of 19 athletes.

Theirs was the faster heat, and it produced four of the five non-automatic qualifiers.

Chebet, 24, clocked 15:26.40.

Chebet (in orange vest second from right) competed in the second heat

Defending champion Hellen Obiri, who did not take part in this event, will relinquish her crown to any one of the 15 runners who will feature in the final that will happen on the penultimate day of the championships. More specifically, it will start at 4:25am on Sunday (Ugandan time).

Gidey and Hassan are top contenders for the title, but 2019 silver medallist Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi of Kenya will have a say in this.

Gidey's compatriots, Gudaf Tsegay and Dawit Seyaum, will also be out to compete for medal positions.

Kipkemboi is already a medallist at this championships, having bagged bronze in the women's 10,000m final won by Gidey. Obiri took silver in that one.

The Kenyan-Ethiopian women's rivalry was also seen in the 1,500m final, where Kenyan Faith Kipyegon took gold, as Tsegay settled for silver.

Ethiopian Gotytom Gebreslase won the women's marathon ahead of Judith Korir of Kenya (silver) and Israel's Lonah Salpeter (bronze).

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