Blessing Afripa will take to the track tonight (between Thursday and Friday) in Santiago de Cali in Colombia, to win a medal in the under-20 world championship, in the 200 meters.
Afrifa advanced to the finals, after smashing the Israeli record for the second time in one day.
The runner set the clock at 20.17 seconds, setting the fourth best result this year in the world, to advance to the finals of the World Athletics Championships under the age of 20.
Afrifa's coach, Igor Balon, was delighted with his apprentice: "From the end of the previous season, we set ourselves the goal of the World Championship. It is important to remember that a year ago he stepped on the international circuit for the first time, and this was also his first year as a youth.
On the way, we didn't skip a step, we arrived in Kali at the peak of our fitness.
The truth is, according to all the training I was expecting a result of 20.30-40, so I was also pleasantly surprised by Blessing.
It's very exciting that hard work pays off and at the right time.
However, it is still very early to talk.
The real test is in the final."
Just to understand what Afrifa did this year: this is the sixth time he has broken his personal and national record, when it started at the end of March when he stopped the clock in a competition in Tel Aviv at 20.83 seconds, and at the beginning of June, again on the track in Tel Aviv, he achieved 20.71 seconds.
At the Israeli Championship in Jerusalem at the end of June, the talented sprinter broke his record in May, until he arrived in Germany on July 3, where he set 20.55 seconds, and of course until the current competition, which he lowered in the qualifiers to 20.37 seconds on the way to the great achievement in the semi-finals.
If it does happen, it will be the first time that an Israeli sprinter steps on the podium in the prestigious competition.
In addition, it will be the third medal overall in this competition, after last year high jumper Jonathan Kapitolnik won the gold in the competition in Nairobi and in 2006, in the competition held in Beijing, high jumper Nicky Fali won the silver medal.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us
