United States-based Kenyan hurdler Moitalel Mpoke will be in the country for this weekend’s World Athletics Championships-cum-Commonwealth Games trials set for Nairobi.

Mpoke is one of the invited athletes that will compete at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani where one team will be picked for both events.

The World Athletics Championships are due on July 15 to 24 in Oregon, United States, while the Commonwealth Games will run from July 28 to August 8 in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Mpoke who qualified for the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but was knocked out of team Kenya after he failed to meet some of the World Athletics anti-doping requirements now says he met all the requirements.

“I have adhered to the anti-doping procedure because I don’t want to miss another big event like it happened in Tokyo. For clarification I have gone through three out of competition tests that also include one blood test as required by World Athletics. So I am ready for the national trials in Nairobi and Oregon afterwards,” said Mpoke.

Mpoke, the 2017 World Under-18 400m hurdles silver medallist, qualified after he successfully defended his 400m hurdles title after clocking 48.84 seconds during the South Eastern Conference (SEC) Championships last month in Oxford, Mississippi.

Mpoke’s winning time that was his season’s best and surpassed the World Athletics Championships qualifying time of 48.90 seconds.

“It will be an honour to represent Kenya in Oregon because that is the biggest athletics event ever. Since I’m based here I think low key I have a slight advantage next month,” said the athlete who also wants to fly Kenya’s flag at the Commonwealth Games.

Mpoke is one of the two Kenyan sprinter to have qualified for the World Athletics Championships the other being newly crowned African champion 100m Ferdinand Omanyala.

Meanwhile, National athletics head coach Julius Kirwa is optimistic Kenyan sprinters can make use of the trials to meet qualification times for the global event.

With the qualification window set to close on Sunday June 26, a day after the trials, Kirwa is hopeful more sprinters can secure qualification on the penultimate day.

“I was hoping we were going to get more athletes qualifying from the Africa Senior Athletics Championships in Mauritius but that was not the case. Now there is one more go,  I want to urge our athletes to use this opportunity because we are now days away before the window closes on Sunday,” Kirwa said.

The men’s triumphant 4x100m that won gold in Mauritius as well as the 4x400m men and women and the mixed 4x400m who missed qualification during the championship.

“Despite winning gold in the relays our time of 39 seconds was way out of the qualification standard.The only way we can make the team is through Athletics Kenya writing to World Athletics for special consideration,that itself is not enough because there has to be an opening because there are so many better ranked teams ahead of us,” explained Kirwa.