Gishinga Njoroge
5 August 2007
Nairobi — Kenyan runners win week-in-week-out, but in genuinely tough championship racing, the current breed has proved not quite up to the task.
Recent performances in All Africa and Commonwealth Games, World Championships and the Olympics have been a let-down. The forthcoming world event in Osaka, Japan will be an enormous test for the Kenyan team preparing to restore pride.
Deceptive headlines have been screaming almost all year round, indicating that Kenyan runners are on top of the world.
But in the run-up to the World Athletics Championships, honest Kenyan team coaches, runners and those in the know realise how difficult it will be to win gold medals in Osaka, Japan, starting on August 25.
Championship racing is not a field on which the Kenyan athlete of the current breed has stamped his authority; the All Africa Games, Commonwealth Games, World Championships and the Olympics is what we are talking about.
Unlike Kenyans, the top athletes in the world are conservative. They run in very few selected events outside the main championships. In every event in Osaka, there will be a world super star capable of shutting out Kenyans from the gold, their (Kenyans) perceived good form elsewhere not withstanding.
In city marathons, road races and the track and field Grand Prix razzmatazz, Kenyans are the largest single group.
Most often, in these and other lesser calibre invitational meets round the world, the Kenyans dominate with the numbers. And, inevitably, when they are basically running against each other, a Kenyan always makes the headlines as the winner.
But several distressing years of considerable failure at "real" championships has stripped Kenyans of all confidence, leaving them to face situations as onerous as the one they will find in the gigantic test in Osaka.
The contingent of 36 (21 men and 16 women) will be fighting to bring Kenya 12 gold medals in the similar number of events they have entered. But even to the best optimist, eight outright victories should, perhaps, be the level-headed expectation.
The realist and the pessimist can start working downwards from eight gold medals and, if recent lethargic performances in major championships is anything to go by, be prepared to accept that the result can be anywhere as abysmal as in the inaugural 1983 World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Finland, when Kenya won zero gold medals!
Incidentally, the immediate past championships were again in Helsinki in 2005 when the country recorded its second worst performance at the championships. One gold, by Benjamin Limo in the men's 5,000m, was the only victory the large contingent had to show for the country's troubles.
Defending Limo's gold will be extremely difficult. Since Helsinki, Eritrean running machine Zernasy Tadese has emerged to add to the pile of Ethiopians who have been Kenya's itching trouble in long distance running.
And Australia's Craig Mottram, who has previously revelled in running against Kenyans, will be relishing engaging yet again, the duo of Limo and Joseph Ebuya whom the Aussie met at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne last year.
Gold medal winner of the Melbourne final was Kenya's Augustine Choge, who will not be getting the chance to battle Mottram again.
Choge was one of the many Kenyan "hot" prospects for future star status that looked unbeatable in 2006 but now cannot be traced on the high performance radar.
Missing from the Osaka contingent is an array of other athletes who just 12 months ago were sizzling and beating the best in the world.
These include: 2006 Commonwealth Games champion Alex Kipchirchir (men's 800m), William Yiampoy (800m), Hoseah Macharinyang (5,000m), Moses Masai (5,000m), Abraham Chebii (5,000m), Michael Kipruto Kigen (5,000m), Moses Mosop (5,000m), Paul Kipsiele Koech (3,000m steeplechase), Wesley Kiprotich (3,000m steeplechase), Lucy "Kabuu" Wangui (10,000m Melbourne Commonwealth Games champion), Jeruto Kiptum (women's 3,000m steeplechase African champion) and Isabella Ochichi (women's 5,000m Melbourne Commonwealth Games champion).
Despite fielding plenty of hopefuls, Kenyans are not favourites - except in the men's 3,000m steeplechase - to win gold in Osaka.
The ghost of winning throughout the year, in especially the marathons, may haunt the team.
Between last and this year, so far, Kenyans have triumphed city marathons ranging from Rotterdam to New York, Roma, Tokyo, Dubai, Torino, Marrakech, Barcelona, Bonn, Madrid, Vienna and Nagano. The Kenyan selectors had, therefore, called up 123 top class marathoners to "volunteer" to run in Osaka. In the end, women team's Catherine Ndereba was the only celebrity answering to the plea.
Ndereba, who took silver behind Britain's Paula Radcliffe in Helsinki two years ago, will be attempting to improve the poor Kenyan record at the World Championships.
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