Elgeyo Marakwet is home of steeplechase champions

NAIROBI • On a cloudy day at a school in Elgeyo Marakwet county in the western part of Kenya, children jump over wooden desks serving as hurdles placed on the course of a steeplechase race, as their classmates cheer excitedly from the side.

Boniface Tiren, who has moulded several of the East African nation's world-beating middle-distance runners as a coach, then shows one of the students how to position his legs and upper body for the optimum jump.

"Yes! That's good!" he shouts when one girl executes the move flawlessly.

The rugged, hilly county of Elgeyo Marakwet has produced the bulk of Kenya's nine Olympic gold medals in the men's 3,000 metres steeplechase, an event the country had dominated at the Olympic Games since 1984 until Morocco's Soufiane El Bakkali snatched the title in Tokyo this month.

Tiren believes that shock defeat will force Kenya to pay more attention to its athletics development programmes, especially at the grassroots level in places like Elgeyo Marakwet.

"It is a wake-up call, we need to go back to the drawing board," he told Reuters.

Officials need to invest in training the girls and boys at a young age, equipping them with the skills necessary to progress into the next crop of gold medallists in the race, Tiren said.

Elgeyo Marakwet also hosts the town of Iten, a high-altitude training area frequented by global track stars including Britain's Mo Farah, a four-gold Olympic champion in 2012 and 2016, and Kenya's world-record holder in the men's 800m, David Rudisha.

Past Olympic gold medallists in the men's 3,000m steeplechase who hail from the same area include Conseslus Kipruto, the 2016 Olympic champion, Brimin Kipruto, who won gold in 2008, and Ezekiel Kemboi, who took the crown in 2012 and 2004.

Other notable athletes hailing from the country include multiple 3,000m steeplechase world champion and Olympics silver medallist Moses Kiptanui, and Kenyan-born Qatari Saif Saaeed Shaheen, the world record holder and multiple world champion in the event.

For Tiren's young athletes, their dreams of reaching the medal podium at future Games remain despite the Kenyan steeplechase runners being edged out this month in Tokyo.

"I am expecting to become a great runner and I hope one day I will bring a gold medal to Kenya," said student Elizabeth Khatievi.

REUTERS

The last time Kenya failed to win the steeplechase before Tokyo 2020.