Kenyan gets point across in 1,500 meters

OSAKA, Japan -- Asbel Kiprop is too young to know better.

The Kenyan miler turned 18 at the end of June. He looked back and stared at Alan Webb as he passed the U.S. runner near the finish line and won their first-round heat in the world championship 1,500 meters Saturday.

Then Kiprop wagged a finger, as if he were calling out Webb, the fastest 1,500-meter runner in the world this season.

“It wasn’t [aimed] at him,” Kiprop said. “I was saying, ‘Number 1.’ ”

There was no way to know how Webb took the gesture. He did not stop to talk with media after advancing to Monday’s semifinals.

Webb clearly is letting nothing distract him. He also declined to attend a USA Track and Field news conference in Osaka because it was too close to his competition dates.

“[What Kiprop did] was no offense at Alan,” said Kenyan emigrant Bernard Lagat of the United States.

“Sometimes you do something to pump yourself up -- spontaneously, without thinking.”

Lagat, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist competing on a U.S. team for the first time, also advanced to the semifinals despite being spiked in the right calf.

As Webb, now 24, had been, Kiprop is a high school phenom. He was a surprise winner at the World Junior Championships in cross-country last winter and won the 1,500 at the African Games and the Kenyan world championship trials.

Kiprop may wind up being a stalking horse for more experienced Kenyan runners in Wednesday’s final -- should he and Webb qualify.

“He is the favorite,” Kiprop said of Webb.

“We’re going to run as a team for medals.”

Despite a tradition of middle-distance and distance-running greatness, Kenya never has won a 1,500 world title.

* Quote of the day: “I was trying to run 10.2, 10.3, but I couldn’t go that slow [because] it’s the fastest track I’ve ever been on in my life.” -- U.S. champion Tyson Gay after clocking 10.19 in a first-round heat of the 100 meters.

* Saturday’s big event: The men’s shotput, in which Reese Hoffa of the United States beat reigning champion and teammate Adam Nelson.

It was Nelson’s third world silver medal and the sixth U.S. shotput win in the last seven worlds.

* Today’s big event: The men’s 100-meter final, on a track so fast that many think it will take a world record to win.

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Philip Hersh covers Olympic sports for The Times and the Chicago Tribune.