Born to Perform (16 page)

20

The Great African Athletes

Some people are like magpies, always sitting on the fence. Others are like beavers, always on the go, making things happen. From a young age I learned the lesson that if you want a job done ask a busy man. If you want something done right, go to the top man, the boss.

In 1978, when I was sixteen years of age and in boarding school at the Salesian College in Pallaskenry, Co. Limerick, there were Trocáire boxes on each of the dining tables in the students' refectory during Lent. They sat there week after week, with none of us touching them, and one day it dawned on me: sure, as students, we were all broke. We didn't have any money other than coppers to put into the boxes. It was the parents who had the money.

We were all well aware of the famine, poverty and drought in Biafra in those years, and the pictures on television struck a note with me. Salesian College also had an Agriculture College attached to the secondary boarding school, and the food on the students' tables was fit for a king. It was a far cry from the stricken poverty of Africa. I felt I needed to do something to help. There were over 400 students, teachers and staff between the 2 schools. I reasoned that if I did something purposeful, and had each person sponsor me just £1, then I would generate over £400 for the Trocáire fund.

I went to the headmaster and told him I wanted to run from the college to the Town Hall in Limerick City and out again – over 25 miles in total. This would be my way to raise some funds. The headmaster was sceptical but after some further convincing he agreed. I drew up a big poster, with the sign “Marathon Run by Gerard Hartmann in aid of Trocáire. Please pledge £1.” The students weren't too bothered about putting their coins into a Lenten box, but if a fellow student was doing something meaningful for their money, I knew they would support it.

Running long distances like that was still something of an unknown in 1978: the running boom had not begun. Running a marathon was looked upon as being a bit like going to the moon, especially for a sixteen-year-old. Fundraising and sponsorship to do such events had not yet caught on, but it had caught the interest of the school that Sunday in 1978, when the headmaster, rector and students gathered to cheer me on my way. It was a big occasion for the school, one of their own students running all the way into Limerick and back out. Fr Martin Loftus, our wonderful sports master, patiently drove in his car behind me, tracking my every step. In the end, more than £400 was raised.

Little did I think on that day that over fourteen years later my work as a physical therapist would bring me into contact with the great African athletes, many of whom had grown up in abject poverty. I would establish my own clinic, the Hartmann International Sports Injury Clinic, high up above the Great Rift Valley in the village of Iten, Kenya, where over 600 of the world's best runners live and train some 8,500 feet above sea level. The Kenyan people have influenced and impressed me so much.

Two such Kenyan greats Moses Kiptanui and William Tanui burst onto the international athletics stage in 1992, the same year I started making a reputation for myself within the world of athletics as “the Irish physio with the magic hands”. Moses Kiptanui won the world junior 1,500-metre title in 1990, and from 1992 to 1998 he set over a dozen world records in events ranging from the 3,000 metres to the 3,000 metres steeplechase and the 5,000 metres. So, when I am asked about the greatest athlete I ever worked with, I typically respond with the name Moses Kiptanui. Such was his ability that he purposely shaved fractions of a second off his record times to ensure he achieved a new world record, and he pocketed the record bonus and International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Golden League gold bars into the bargain.

I have never witnessed an athlete run with such rhythm and grace as Kiptanui did. Perhaps I have some bias towards the 3,000 metre steeplechase, as I had won a national underage title in the event in 1978. Like poetry in motion, Kiptanui hurdled the 28 steeplechase barriers and 7 water jumps in this most arduous of track events to become the first man in history to break the 8-minute barrier. We remain lifelong friends and share that special bond that sport can bring.

William Tanui (“Big William”) won the 800-metre gold medal at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona and on visits to Kenya I regularly meet him. On a recent meeting, I was saddened to hear his story that his house had been burgled and his Olympic gold medal had been taken.

Another of the great Kenyan athletes I have had the pleasure of meeting is the father of my good friend Martin Keino, and the first Kenyan to make a major sporting impact, winning a gold medal in the 1,500 metres at the 1968 Mexico Olympics and a gold medal in the 3,000-metre steeplechase at the 1972 Munich Olympics. His name is Kip Keino, and he is also known as the father of Kenyan distance running.

Kip grew up in the impoverished outskirts of Eldoret in western Kenya, in a little village named Kipsamo. He was one of six children, and was reared in a mud hut. No one could ever have imagined that a young boy from such a poor background would make such an impact on both the athletic and humanitarian world.

The future was bleak in Kenya in the early 1960s and one lived either in extreme poverty or was lucky enough to be enlisted in the Kenyan Armed Forces or Police Force. When Kip joined the police force at eighteen years of age, his life was to change: he was introduced to competitive running, and with the success he achieved at Olympic level he earned worldwide respect. To this day, he is regarded as arguably the greatest of all the Kenyan runners.

The impact of his success spurred a running boom in his country, and so many young boys and girls have followed in Kip's footsteps to become world and Olympic champions. They have seen that, through running, there is an opportunity and a way out of extreme poverty.

In 1963, when Kip Keino was on police duty, he stumbled upon two emaciated children. They had been abandoned. Their hunger was so great that they were eating dirt by the roadside. The local authorities gave Kip permission to care for the children, and that was the start of Kip's real calling from God. As well as being credited as father of the Kenyan running revolution, he is recognised as father of his nation in a much more meaningful context than athletics.

Kip and his wife Phyllis are currently parents to over 100 children, all orphans, who live on the Keino farm near Eldoret. In the past 30 years Kip and Phyllis have reared over 2,000 children. Their 200-acre farm Kazi Mingi – which in Swahili means “hard work” – employs 22 staff. They take in babies who have been thrown out by their parents. Many are AIDs orphans and their mothers are prostitutes who either can't or don't want to raise the children. They have been rescued from public toilets, dustbins, the roadside and the bushes. Kip collects them and takes them to the orphanage, where Phyllis and the care workers look after and rear the children.

When I visited the orphanage, Kip was proud to point out that, of the thousands of orphans he has reared, some have gone on to become doctors, nurses, university lecturers, teachers; others own their own businesses. They all received an upbringing, an education and a quality of life they would never have encountered without the Keinos.

Kip now also chairs the National Olympic Committee of Kenya, and has received funding for the orphanage from the Kenyan Government. He has used his world contacts to receive support from the International Olympic Committee, from the car company Daimler-Chrysler, and also Oxfam and the Rotary Club. Kip and Phyllis live modestly, but work endless hours tirelessly. Kip found something purposeful and meaningful away from the spotlight and glory of the Olympic stadium. He found his true calling. He and Phyllis are on an obvious God-given mission.

The Keinos have recently completed a school which caters for 800 children. Kip is often consulted and respected by all members of Kenyan society. I met Kip only a number of years ago in London. He was there to run the London Marathon. His finishing time was 4 hours and 30 minutes – well over 2 hours slower than the winner, but the reward for him was the £150,000 he raised for Oxfam. Kip recalled that when he was a toddler it was Oxfam who put a well in his village, and without that he may never have been healthy enough to have become an athlete.

It can't be overstated that Kip Keino has made a tremendous impact on the world. The memories of his awesome athletic achievements pale in comparison to the achievements he has accomplished off the track. He is a true winner in sport, but also in life – and further testimony that, through sport and hard work, great things can be achieved.

I have worked with upwards of 300 of the top Kenyan athletes, many of whom are my lifelong friends: Moses Kiptanui, William Tanui, Daniel Komen, Benjamin Limo and Moses Masai are just some. Of course, there is also my “twin brother” Douglas Wakiihuri; he calls my mother “Mum” and often phones her up for a regular chat.

Douglas was always different. He was born and raised in Mombasa, at sea level, which proves that you don't have to be born or train at altitude to make it to the top in distance running. At eighteen years of age, Douglas was not a good runner by Kenyan standards, but he had heart. He wrote to the famous coach in Japan, Mr Nakamura, who coached the famous marathon runner Toshihiko Seko. Douglas pleaded with Mr Nakamura to bring him to Japan and that he would work for his keep. The rest is distance-running history.

Four years after arriving in Japan, Douglas Wakiihuri won Kenya's first-ever gold medal in the marathon when he won the World Championships in 1987 in Rome. The following year, at the Olympic Games in Seoul, he won the silver medal, being out-foxed at the finish by the Italian Gelindo Bordin. Douglas went on to dominate marathon running for a few years after, winning the London and New York marathons before a career-threatening knee injury knocked him back. It was then our brotherhood relationship began. Douglas lived with me in my home in Gainesville, Florida for three years. I not only addressed his knee injury but coached him to winning the IAAF World Cup Marathon in Athens in 1995.

Many years later, the great memory man of RTÉ sport Jimmy McGee visited my clinic and museum at the University of Limerick and we reminisced on triathlon and Ironman times of old. Then I hit Jimmy with the quiz question: “Who won the silver medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Marathon?” Jimmy responded, “Indeed, it was our very own John Treacy.”

“Now, Jimmy”, I asked, “who won the Olympic marathon silver medal in the following Olympics in Seoul in 1988 and where is that medal now?”

True to his memory, he replied, “The great Douglas Wakiihuri, from Kenya, won the Olympic silver, and I assume he has it in his home in Nairobi.”

“No, Jimmy,” I said. “Look into the glass case here.” I pointed out Sonia O'Sullivan's Olympic silver medal on display, and Jim Hogan's European Marathon gold medal from 1966 in Budapest. Jim Cregan competed for Ireland in previous Olympics but became so disgruntled with the Irish Athletics Federation that he changed his name to Hogan and ran for England, winning the European Marathon.

I showed him Marcus O'Sullivan's three gold medals from the World Indoor Championships, which were sitting alongside Frank O'Mara's two world indoors gold medals won for the 3,000 metres. And there at the rear of the display case in the purple velvet box with the insignia “Seoul Olympic Games” was the Olympic Marathon silver medal from Seoul in 1988.

“My goodness!” said Jimmy, “I never knew we had two Olympic silver marathon medals from successive Olympics here in Ireland. Tell me, how and why is it here?”

“Friendship,” I replied, “and the fellowship of sport are a powerful combination.”

It was in Nairobi, Kenya, days before I travelled to Macau for the Great Britain Olympic Team training camp for the Beijing Games, that Douglas Wakiihuri, Lornah Kiplagat, Ger Keane and I shared a wonderful meal together, where the talk was speckled with the beginnings of Olympic anticipation. It was one of those nights that will stay animated in my mind as we shared stories of the Olympic exploits of some of our great friends. That same night, Douglas had an extraordinary grin on his face. He was like a young boy bursting with excitement but holding back from telling us something. The following morning, at 6.00 a.m., he was unexpectedly waiting at Kenyatta International Airport as we were due to depart. He had come to say goodbye and, after handing me a small packet, he looked me in the eye, gave me a long embrace and said, “Daktari Gerard, take good care of yourself, and don't open this package until you arrive in Ireland. It's my surprise for you.”

I opened it as I waited at the luggage carousel in Cork Airport. Ger Keane watched me carefully tear back the brown paper wrapping to see a dusty purple velvet box. Inside was Douglas Wakiihuri's Olympic silver medal, which he had won in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Marathon, surely the most prized possession of his sporting life. A neat handwritten note folded in the box read:

Daktari Gerard, every medal has a bright shiny side which everybody sees, but also a dark side which lies in its shadow. I give you this medal as a gift of our friendship to put in your clinic so that everybody who sees it may be inspired and touched by its success and so allowing it to shine brightly forever more.

Your twin brother,

Wakiihuri

On May 17, 2007, the day that Ronnie Delany officially opened my new clinic and launched the Hartmann Collection – a museum of international sporting memorabilia at the University Sports Arena at the University of Limerick – Douglas Wakiihuri requested that the following message be read out:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I, Douglas Wakiihuri from Kenya, would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you all on this special occasion to this great nation of Ireland.

This is my dream as it is yours, too, and for many more dreams to be fulfilled. Let the light shine on to the young and the great and to all who cheer us all the way. To those who pray for us and to our families who encourage and believe beyond no doubt that we are all together at the finish line.