Eirer wrote:
She ran 30:48 for the win and the Kenyan Irine Cheptai ran 30:49. Cheptai did win the World Cross Country Championship in 2017 but she is certainly not the cream of the crop in Kenya now so this win for Eilish, while nice, is not really that surprising. The field overall was just OK.
I tend to agree that this is a step down from beating the top tier Kenyans in Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi or Hellen Obiri. It's still a very nice victory as Cheptai did finish 6th in Tokyo last year, and she's finished 1st or 2nd in a bunch of high-level races this year. So, she's very competitive and they type of athlete Eilish would need to beat to win some top-level 10KM and Half Marathons on the roads.