Extended camp maintains Kenya’s winning discipline

Kenya’s winning template at the World Cross Country Championships has remained unchanged for the last 37 years.

Simply, select the team early after six weekend meetings in various parts of the country, and Athletics Kenya’s regional championships and nationals, usually in February, annually.

Then send 40 qualifiers to Kigari Teachers Training College, some 140 kilometres northeast of Nairobi on the fringes of Mt Kenya for three weeks where they lead a Spartan life devoid of luxury but abundantly supplied with food.

Coach Julius Kirwa and his assistants, two cross country greats Benjamin Limo and Shem Kororia, Robert Ngisirei, and Daniel Gachara, know the script. 

Arise at the crack of dawn for early morning followed by time trial mid-morning runs through village tracks.

Kirwa knows the terrain in Embu perfectly well.

It is demanding, and he is confident that all the elements are in harmony, as I found out recently. 

This year’s drill is different. Strict Australian entry visa application two months prior to travel requirements pushed back the trials to December 10 last year with the residential training camp commencing before Christmas, and continuing until the team’s departure to avoid inconsistency or drop in form next week.

It is the longest camp for any national team in history, says Kirwa.

Bathurst is all about history.

Team Kenya is returning to compete in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time since the Mombasa championship in 2007, and only the second time in 35 years after Auckland, New Zealand, in 1988.

Kenya is still smarting from the unexpected defeat in the 2019 edition in Aarhus, Denmark, where Helen Obiri was the only gold medallist (in the senior women’s race). 

Ugandan policeman Joshua Cheptegei and his compatriot Jacob Kiplimo won gold and silver, relegating Kenya’s Geoffrey Kamworor to third place. 

Kenya won three silver and two bronze medals, a commendable performance, but unfamiliar territory for East Africa’s athletics powerhouse, according to coach Kirwa.

He has charted his programme well, using the internet’s weather forecast to draw parallels with Bathurst on race day.

It is uncomfortably hot in Embu from 9am when the athletes start the day with a dawn run to warm-up before getting down to business proper to get the real feel of Bathurst. 

Temperatures are hovering around 31 degrees at the end of the time trials by mid-day.

The weather in Kenya is similar to Bathurst where athletes will compete in temperatures of 33 degrees.

Kirwa is not keen to discuss his team’s prospects. But the drills, YouTube video reviews of past races and pep talks define a team on a mission. 

It is, somehow, a repeat of the 1988 worlds as captured by The Glasgow Herald, the only newspaper in the world then which had unofficial rights to cover the championships of those championships 35 years ago.

It tried to unravel the myth of the success in 1988 which still sounds familiar today.

Kenya trains specifically for this event with competitive trials on the slopes of Mt Kenya. The comment of their team manager Mike Kosgei: “We use it (cross country) as a build-up for the track. Don’t really take it seriously.” 

This was after questions started popping up as to how Kenya was showing remarkable progression at the World Cross Country Championships by 1988.

The Herald pointed out that money would be the motivating factor for the success of cross-country running in future.

The Kenyans trained in Kenya for the country’s most successful Olympic Games in history in Seoul, South Korea, where Kenya won medals - including four gold - from the 800 metres to the marathon.

The first gold medal in the 5,000 metres by John Ngugi was topped by Africa’s first ever boxing gold through Robert Wangila.

Bathurst is a dress rehearsal for the 2023 World Championships in Athletics and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, much as the coaches insist on “one thing at a time.”