Why Kenya, not Ethiopia, is likely to give us the big surprise of 2015

Kenya's Dennis Kimetto poses next to a display showing the time in which he won the 41th edition of the Berlin Marathon in Berlin on September 28, 2014. Kimetto became the first man to break the 2hr 3min barrier with a run of 2hr 2min 57sec. PHOTO | TOBIAS SCHWARZ |  AFP

In Summary

• I think we shall have a “black swan” event in athletics.
• What is wrong about Kenyan athletics and threatens it, is also what makes it great.

By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
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And so it is time to look forward to 2015. A good question is always: what big surprises lie ahead? I think we shall have a “black swan” event in athletics.

Kenya’s Dennis Kimetto tore the book on athletics when broke the world record at the Berlin Marathon in September, clocking 2:02:57 to be the first human to go under 2:03.

Veteran sports journalists declared that they thought they would die before seeing any runner bring the marathon in at under 2 hours 3 minutes.

It does not seem humanly possible, but we could have a 2:01:30 this year — and that is what would make it a black swan; impossible, but possible.

Only an Ethiopian or Kenyan would do it. But which is more likely? A Kenyan I would say.

Recently, after two-time Boston and Chicago Marathon champion, Rita Jeptoo, failed a doping test, Kenya seemed to go into a panic.

There were justified concerns that the reputation of Kenyan athletics, the country’s leading man-made selling product abroad, was under threat by doping.

Thing is, what is wrong about Kenyan athletics and threatens it, is also what makes it great — the overwhelming desire to win at any cost.

FORM AND THE SPECTACLE

Kenyan long-distance runners are different from their northern Ethiopian rivals in that the Ethiopians seek class and domination, while Kenyans seek form and the spectacle.

Ethiopian athletes are disciplined and patient. Kenyans are daring, spontaneous, and dramatic.

Today it is very difficult to have a Kenyan athlete who stays at the top as long as Haile Gebrselassie and rises to his stature.

At the same time, it is near-impossible to find an Ethiopian with the audacity and colour of Ezekiel Kemboi, or who would break a world record with the gusto Kimetto — or the milder mannered David Rudisha — did.

Which brings us to the next critical difference.

Ethiopian athletes always seem to run for country first, then personal glory second. Kenyan athletes run for themselves first, then national glory second.

This latter model, motivated by great personal ambition, is what produces black swans.

In these matters it always helps to have a sense of history.

The man who changed long-distance history and opened doors to Kenyan rule on the long-distance was the venerable Kipchoge “Kip” Keino.

But 36 years ago Kip did what Kenyans athletes continue to do today.

In June of 2013, Esquire magazine published an immensely readable article by Tim Lewis, the author of In The Land of Second Chances, a book on Rwanda’s rising status as a notable cycling nation.

Entitled “Why The Tour De France Will Have Its First Black Winner By 2020”, Lewis said Africa’s victory in world cycling would come much like Kipchego’s arrival on the scene of global athletics.

We can only quote at length: “Not so long ago, Africans were not known for distance running. Then in 1968, Jim Ryun and… Keino lined up in the 1500m at the Olympics in Mexico City. Ryun was the corn-fed, all-American superstar from Wichita, Kansas, who had started running as a kid on his 4.30am newspaper round… he broke the four-minute mile shortly after his seventeenth birthday.

“He entered the final in Mexico as the world-record holder, unbeaten at the distance for more than three years. More than the numbers, he just looked like an athletics champion. Sprinters could get by on raw explosive power, but longer distances called on cerebral qualities such as focus and discipline. The determination and stamina required, it was said, made it the domain of the Anglo-Saxon.

“Keino was a policeman from Kenya who escaped a cheetah at the age of 12 by shinning up a tree and tying himself to a branch overnight. He had never beaten Ryun and his tactics in the final appeared either naïve or desperate. He sprinted from the gun, soon establishing a lead of 12 metres. Keino was running suicidally fast, but instead of Ryun reeling his rival back with his famed finishing kick, the lead edged out to 15 and finally 20 metres, the widest margin of victory in that event in Olympic history.

“Afterwards, Ryun was attacked in the press: his defeat inexplicable and somehow inexcusable. He briefly retired, though he was only 21. ‘Some even said I had let down the whole world,’ he recalled. ‘I didn’t get any credit for running my best and no one seemed to realise that Keino had performed brilliantly’.”

Have a Kip 2015.

The author is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa (mgafrica.com). Twitter:@cobbo3