So, 2019 couldn’t have been a better year for the 23-year-old. Cheptegei underlined his intentions early in the year by exorcising the demons of Kololo when he beat a strong field to win the men’s senior 10km gold in Aarhus, Denmark at the World Cross Country Championships.
It was a moment of sweet redemption for Cheptegei who beat Geoffrey Kamworor, the Kenyan who took gold at Kololo. It was a Ugandan 1-2 with upcoming Jacob Kiplimo winning silver and Kamworor settling for bronze.
Uganda also claimed Team gold in the men’s seniors after a very impressive showing of the team. Besides Cheptegei and Kiplimo, Thomas Ayeko was seventh and Joel Ayeko tenth.
Then came the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar where he arrived as overwhelming favourite in the 10km race. Having won silver in London and with Mo Farah retired from track running (he has since made a U-turn), the odds-on favourite was Cheptegei.
With the aid of his powerful final kick, Cheptegei held off the spirited challenge of Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha on the home straight to win Uganda’s first ever 10,000m gold at the World Championships.
The Doha gold fetched him a cools Shs 219m, which was Shs 109m more than he earned for winning the World Cross Country Senior Men’s race in Aarhus.
GOLDEN NAKAAYI
But Doha wasn’t a story of only Cheptegei. The 800m runner Halima Nakaayi entered the record books after holding off pre-race favourite Ajee Wilson of the USA to win the country a first-ever gold at the distance at the World Championships. Before Doha, no man or woman had won Uganda gold of that magnitude over 800m.
Nakaayi’s gold was also Uganda’s first female gold since Dorcus Inzikuru claimed the 3000m steeplechace in Helsinki, Finland in 2005. Like Cheptegei, Nakaayi won prize money of Shs 219m.
The two victories of Cheptegei and Nakaayi helped Uganda finish a remarkable ninth on the medals table out of 206 participating countries.
Cheptegei, however, didn’t stop at Doha. Before the World Championships, he had won the Diamond League in Zurich, Switzerland in the 5000m to take home Shs 184m.
Towards the end of the year, he sealed a remarkable season by breaking the 10km road world record in Valencia, Spain. He posted a time of 26 minutes 38 seconds, which slashed six seconds off the 2010 mark by Kenya’s Leonard Komon.
So good was Cheptegei that he was shortlisted for the IAAF World Athlete of the Year award but narrowly lost out to Kenya’s marathon superstar Eliud Kipchoge. That was the only ‘loss’ Cheptegei experienced in 2019; he won every race he entered in and will be favourite to add Olympic gold to his collection come Tokyo 2020 at the Olympics in Japan.
The only medal missing on his resume is Olympic gold and he has every right to fancy his chances in the summer, even with the return of Farah.
CRANES FLY HIGH
In football, the Uganda Cranes made it back-to-back qualifications at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Egypt where they qualified out of the group stage for the first time in 41 years.
The Cranes overpowered DR Congo 2-0 in the group opener thanks to goals by Patrick Kaddu and Emmanuel Okwi, both headers, before holding Khama Billiat’s Zimbabwe to a creditable one-all draw. A 0-2 defeat to hosts Egypt didn’t stop Uganda from reaching the second round of the tournament.
But then drama set in. The Cranes players refused to train at the Arab Contractors stadium days before Uganda faced Senegal in the second round of the competition.
The bonus row was an ugly turn of events and Uganda was eventually knocked out 1-0 by Senegal after a blunder by Godfrey Walusimbi.
Walusimbi would later retire from international football while coach Sebastian Desabre quit the Cranes job to become coach of Egyptian club Pyramids.
Still, Uganda’s fairly decent Afcon showing saw players like Okwi, Taddeo Lwanga, Khalid Aucho, Allan Kyambadde and Abdul Lumala sign deals with Egyptian clubs after the tournament.
Senegal, Uganda’s Afcon conquerors, would reach the final where they were beaten by Algeria.
Domestically, KCCA won the Uganda Premier League for the 13th time while Proline made history by winning both the Fufa Big League and Uganda Cup.
However, both KCCA and Proline fell short on the continent. That said, the biggest downside of local football was the suspension of Fufa president Moses Magogo over the illegal sale of the 2014 Fifa World Cup tickets.
