Kaki to skip African Championships in Nairobi

Sudan's Abubaker Kaki Khamis has said he's not sure of competing at the 17th African Athletics Championships in Nairobi being held later this month at the Nyayo Stadium in the Kenyan capital.

Speaking before competing at the Meeting Areva in Paris - Samsung Diamond League, the 21-year-old said: "I don't think I will compete at the African Championships. I haven't made an agreement with (David Lekuta) Rudisha but it would be difficult to run against each other at each race.

"I competed against him in Oslo and we'll meet again in Brussels and Rieti. When we run together, the world record (1:41:11) could be broken.

" I am pretty happy to have run my PB in Oslo this year, 1:42:23. I really would like to break once again my personal best this season and I really plan to run under 1:42:00. I want to run really fast."

"This will be my first race ever in Paris and I'm excited about it. I have asked the pace makers to run 48 high or 49 low at 400 m. The race will be really fast, that's what I want. I train alone in Khartum almost all the year long but I stay between two and three months in Stockholm during the summer season," he added.

However, Kaki could not match his pre-race prediction as he ended up winning the Paris 800m race in a modest 1:43.50 ahead of South Africa's Mbulaeni Mulaudzi (1:44.11) and Poland's Marcin Lewandowski (1:44.40)