A perfect example of how to run the Kenyan way
They serve as showcases for their sport, feeding your urge to pick up a racket, swing a club, push through a cue.
David Rudisha is no different. In gliding to victory in the World 800m final last August, he made bursting your lungs in a two-lap sprint appear the most languidly glamorous pursuit you could imagine. Watching the giant hold his head high, form perfect, as he ate up the Daegu track, you instinctively, if briefly, rolled off the belly of the couch and onto the balls of your feet.
Seeing him skip along the dirt tracks of his natural habitat was even more inspiring. That was where Eamonn Coghlan found Rudisha in last Monday’s fine Setanta documentary Man On A Mission, as our own world champion travelled to the farming town of Iten in the Kenyan Rift Valley to determine just why this production line of greats runs so smoothly.
It’s not the facilities. Even at Iten’s Centre of Excellence, Coghlan found the same compacted dirt track that links local farms.
Probing Rudisha for secrets, the champion shyly pointed out some of the virtues of necessity.
“When we were young, we were barefoot all the time. You have that good feeling with the ground — that strengthens your ankles.”
His coach, Brother Colm O’Connell, the Corkman who has guided so many local men and women to greatness, knew Rudisha was special as soon as he arrived in Iten to attend primary school.
“I saw his physical size, I saw his stride pattern, I saw his relaxation. Not stressed, not flailing. Someone who was running in a controlled way.”
Mike Boit, Coghlan’s old rival and now a professor of physiology, praised Brother O’Connell’s ability to take time with his athletes, not push too hard and build confidence.
Iten is 8,500 metres above sea level and that, of course, delivers more benefits than a good view.
But Coghlan decided there was a perfect storm of conditions making Kenyans supreme at their sport. “Hard work, poverty, diet, altitude and self-belief.”
With that, I rolled back into the warm belly of the couch.
