{{Twice London marathon champion Mary Keitany will not compete this year because she is expecting her second child, a close friend of the Kenyan runner said on Wednesday.}}<\/p>\n
Keitany, 31, won the London Marathon in 2011 and 2012 but did not defend the title last month. In her absence compatriot Prisca Jeptoo finished first.<\/p>\n
“Mary will be away from athletics this year due to pregnancy. That’s why she missed London,” the friend told meda.<\/p>\n
Keitany, a mother of a five-year-old child, will be the second top Kenyan female athlete to miss this August’s Moscow world championships due to pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday, Keitany’s compatriot Vivian Cheruiyot, a double world champion who also won silver (5,000) and bronze (10,000) during last year’s London Olympics, announced she was expecting her first child and would not compete in Moscow.<\/p>\n
Both Keitany and Cheruiyot train in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province, which is home to some of the world’s best middle and distance runners.<\/p>\n
Keitany, who won the 2012\/1013 World Marathon Majors, a circuit of the globe’s most lucrative and prestigious marathons was a hot favourite for last year’s London Olympics marathon gold medal but finished only fourth. <\/p>\n
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{{Twice London marathon champion Mary Keitany will not compete this year because she is expecting her second child, a close friend of the Kenyan runner said on Wednesday.}} Keitany, 31, won the London Marathon in 2011 and 2012 but did not defend the title last month. In her absence compatriot Prisca Jeptoo finished first. “Mary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-7989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7989"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=7989"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=7989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}