Joshua Cheptegei competes in the men's 5,000m event during the Diamond League Athletics Meeting in Monaco last month.

| Matthias Hangst | AFP

Joshua Cheptegei: Ugandan ‘poetry in motion’

The Nike and Uganda flag labels on his black tracksuit jacket became more visible as he emerged from the pitch-dark compound into the well-lit living room of Kingoo Cottages in Kapchorwa Municipality.

On this wet and extremely cold evening of June 2019, Joshua Cheptegei, in his distinct tenor voice, had called out my name from a distance.

“It seems every time I carry this drink you are in the area? Man, you have some funny ancestors,” Cheptegei cheekily said, as a fellow trainer emerged behind him carrying a 10-litre jerrycan of Lakwek, a local drink made out of honey and forest herbs, which many Sabiny enjoy.

The drink is famed for treating many illnesses (no medical proof, though) and is perfect fare at social gatherings for those who do not cherish alcohol.

I had gone to the cottages with my brothers Kissa Joram and Aggrey Chepsikor to keep warm.

We quickly exchanged pleasantries with the athlete and arranged seats near the smoldering fireplace built strategically at the centre of the living room.

He is easily likeable, sociable, intelligent and a fountain of stories, yet extremely disciplined. He didn’t waste time to have a go at my profession.

Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei celebrates after winning and breaking the world record in the men's 5,000 event during the Diamond League Athletics Meeting in Monaco last month.

Photo credit: Matthias Hangst | AFP

“Someone from a media house that rivals yours reported a mudslide in the dry season. He said the chairperson of my village died in the disaster, yet nothing of the sort had happened,” Cheptegei remarked and the group burst out in laughter as I tried to redeem the profession.

I learnt that the particular media house had retracted the story and relieved the reporter of his noble duties.

The evening was getting warmer. After a winding chitchat, we inevitably got to discuss sports. And the focus was on Cheptegei, who was sitting next to me.

“All you need in this sport is focus and a lot of discipline,” he said while holding the sides of his face to illustrate the point.

He continued: “In this field, my dream is to break every record there is. After the track, I will join marathon. I want to go after all records there as well."

To us, his homeboys, the weight of this could easily pass with the blowing cold. Yet that was a pregnant statement from a man with the world in his feet.

That evening, he retreated early because he had to wake up at dawn to go for training.

Impressive run

At sunrise the next day, Cheptegei and a host of other athletes had done an impressive 10km run across the mountainous Kapchorwa town up to Kwoti sub-county. He wore a loose jacket over tight bikers, lime-green socks and white sports shoes. He did not look at us standing by the roadside to wave back, choosing to drive home two hours later after the training to have a lengthy chat with us.

The statistics speak volumes about the young man, a teetotaler – a trait he inherited from his father, who divides his time between church, as a leader, and school, as a teacher.

His idol is Ethiopia’s long-distance star Kenenesa Bekele – a man who has seen it all on the track and on the road. And Cheptegei is determined to run in his shoes and outshine Addis Ababa’s finest athlete.

Bekele is the current World and Olympic record holder in the 10,000m race, and was the world record holder in the 5,000m from 2004 until last month when Cheptegei shattered it.

The work is cut out for Kampala’s sure bet. And it so much looks like a dream in progress.

In just three years, Cheptegei has been crowned the 5,000m, 5km and 15km world record holder. He is also the World Championships and World Cross Country champion, as well as a double Commonwealth gold medallist.

Joshua Cheptegei poses for pictures next to the timer screen after breaking the world record in the men's 5,000m event during the Diamond League Athletics Meeting in Monaco last month.

Photo credit: Valery Hache | AFP

Benjamin Njia, a childhood friend and part of Cheptegei’s coaching team, said this week that the 5,000m record that went down in Monaco, France, last month, was a casualty of his vigorous training. He had been preparing for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which were pushed to next year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“He was mentally, emotionally, and physically prepared for the Olympic Games. Currently, the plan for the Olympic Games (2021) is already clear. We are planning for the 10,000m world record and the world record for the 21km world half marathon in Poland on October 17, 2020,” Mr Njia added.

In the eyes of the 2020 Diamond League commentator in Monaco, France, Cheptegei is superhuman. And in the view of marathon king Eliud Kipchoge, Chep – as he is fondly known – is poetry in motion.

To the United Kingdom’s greatest export on the track, Mo Farah, Cheptegei is a pain in the neck. He is the man to watch over the distance in the years to come. “Cheptegei is strong,” he told the UK’s Guardian in 2017. “He’s the one coming through.”

A track monster!

Cheptegei had given Farah a run for his money, challenging the Briton with a monstrous sprint to the finish line and narrowly missing out on the gold medal in the 10,000km World Championships event.

Cheptegei’s childhood friend Joseph Araptai says he is the most talented athlete he has ever seen. And Njia describes Chep as “a machine with a new engine”.

“A track monster!” Njia exclaims.

Yet those praises and achievements starkly contrast with the jeers and humiliation he endured after he threw away an almost 100m lead in the last lap to lose the World Cross Country Championship race to Kenya’s legend Geoffrey Kamworor in Kampala in 2017.

Until then, many people did not know him. He was just a simple lanky long-distance runner from Kapchorwa lurking in the shadows of stars Moses Kipsiro and Stephen Kiprotich. 

Cheptegei had thrilled the home fans by stretching the lead in the senior 10km race. Unknown to the ecstatic crowd, which included President Museveni and First Lady Janet Museveni, cheering him on, a stitch had dealt their only hope for gold a heavy blow in the scotching sun. He wilted down, burnt out and stumbled on to the finish line a distant 30th.

Crestfallen fans

His fans walked home crestfallen. What had started as an exciting day had ended in gloom.

I had retreated to the Hotel Africana in Kampala where the Ugandan contingent was housed. Cheptegei and I had grown up together and this loss was quite close to my heart. State House doctors had come in to check on the athlete. When I spoke to him, he said it was just a stitch. He was ready to go back to the training ground for the next assignment.

Life – and the public, his own fans – had thrown lemons at Cheptegei. But what he chose to make out of the lemons is what tells a different narrative today. We now can sip on the lemonade of world records.

“It took me some weeks to get over [the Kololo mishap]. People felt sorry for me, but whenever they asked me about it I felt bad because they made me remember what happened,” Cheptegei, a soft-spoken boy from Mt Elgon hills, told World Athletics later.

He says social media had been very brutal on him. He read most of the jibes, mockery, insults and a few encouraging messages on social media. “Sometimes I didn’t feel like meeting people.”

“I was so strong. I felt I had the gold coming until the last lap when I felt a stitch. It hurt so badly but I wanted to finish the race whatever the case,” he recalls.

I knew I should be the best in this field.

“But this also gave me energy to prove critics wrong. I knew I should be the best in this field. I went back home in Kapchorwa and resumed training. That year we had the World Championships in London where I had to take on Mo Farah and I needed to prepare well. I wanted gold but narrowly lost to Farah and settled for silver. It is the gold medal that I reclaimed last year in Doha,” he says with pride.

As for the medal that eluded him in Kampala, he ruthlessly grabbed it by clocking 31:40 in 2019 at Aarhus in Denmark. It was a sweet triumph over Kamworor, who finished third with 31:55 behind Cheptegei’s teammate Jacob Kiplimo, who clocked 31:44.

Born to Irene Chemusto and Stephenson Munerya on September 12, 1996, in Cheptandan Village, Kwoti Parish, East Division in Kapchorwa District, Cheptegei started school in Mengya Boarding Primary School.

He would join Town View Secondary School for O-Level until 2010 and then travelled hundreds of kilometres away to further his education at MM College Wairaka in Jinja District in Busoga. He completed in 2012.

Second year

In 2013, Cheptegei joined Bugema University just outside Kampala to study for a degree in literature in English and English language but did not go beyond the second year. He turned to the track.

The second-born in a family of nine (five boys and four girls) says his first love was, however, football.

But it would appear the constant runs he made up and down the hilly Cheptandan village, on the border of the thick Mt Elgon National Park, were nudging him to his talent – and daily bread.

After watching him during some school runs, Njia says he encouraged him to run as he had perfect features for a long-distance runner.

“When I saw him running, I saw his talent and pushed him to concentrate on athletics. He started running seriously in 2004, and it paid off when he went for the 2014 World Juniors in Eugene. He won the 10,000m gold,” Njia told SWEATELITE.

He rose through the ranks so fast that by 2014, he had cemented his place as a professional athlete. That year, he also took part in the 10,000m event at the Bangalore World Championships in Karnataka, India, and finished an impressive second.

Joshua Cheptegei celebrates after winning and breaking the world record in the men's 5,000m event during the Diamond League Athletics Meeting in Monaco last month.

Photo credit: Matthias Hangst | AFP

“This performance was a stepping stone for the rest of my career and changed my life for the better. It made me more determined and gave me the courage to continue working hard to achieve greater performances. I felt that day I discovered a lot of my potential…[it] unlocked the door to helping me achieve my future goals in the sport,” Cheptegei told SWEATELITE early last year.

It is after the 2014 exploits that Cheptegei registered his name among the elite athletes and starting cashing in on his talent. He met President Museveni at State House in Entebbe and was given a token.

This was followed in 2015 by gold over the same distance at the African Junior Championships.

Cheptegei had announced his arrival. He pinched part of the money from Mr Museveni and bought a black Mitsubishi saloon car, which he uses to date. He treasures it so much that even after a life-threatening accident in Kapchorwa town in late 2018, he asked the mechanics to ensure it was back on the road. He drives home in it every day after training.

Cheptegei had set his eyes on books and sports. It is while at university that he took matters seriously – a late age compared to other elite athletes – although he had been taking part in school competitions.

Kenyan facilities

Like the athletes before him, the destination for training had to be in Kaptagat, Kenya, where great training facilities abound. In 2015, he sought tutelage under the expert wing of Patrick Sang, the man who has seen the likes of Kipchoge and Kamworor work up crowds with their endurance in races.

But he would not be at Kaptagat for long. It was not a sustainable project and he had to return to train at home despite the lack of facilities. He also had a duty to inspire and groom talent.

He finished outside the medals bracket at the 2016 Rio Olympics – coming eighth in the 5,000m and sixth in the 10,000m, the first result from a home training schedule.

He had saved some money from the different races and he constructed his own training camp in Kapchorwa.

The Joshua Cheptegei Training Camp in Teryet Sub-county is less than two kilometres from the government-funded Kiprotich High Altitude Training Centre under construction in Kapchorwa District for Ugandan athletes.

“I needed an immediate training facility to help me with great training sessions as Teryet [high altitude training centre] is still far from completion. You know talent wanes with age,” says the 23-year-old long-distance runner.

His wife

Afro Construction Company, owned by his wife and mother of two, Carol Kamari Cheptegei, a civil engineer, executed the project that started on November 20, 2018.

Cheptegei says the camp cost just over Sh300 million, way below the Sh25 billion high-altitude training centre being worked on by the government.

The camp sits on more than 10 acres bordering Mt Elgon National Park, which he purchased from residents. It lies some 2,450m above sea level and is 10 kilometres from Kapchorwa Town.

“My main objective is to tap the vast talent in Sebei [sub-region] and elsewhere, promote sporting skills among the youth, promote tourism and attract investors to Sebei,” says the six-foot athlete.

He also started the Cheptegei Christmas run that features children.

Mr Cheptegei has put up a five-bedroom storied mansion where he lives with his children and wife in Barawa Ward, Central Division, Kapchorwa Municipality.

Bought school

He recently acquired acres of land in the municipality and bought off a school in the heart of Kapchorwa town, an acquisition insiders value at Sh1 billion.

At the last Monaco run, it is estimated that he bagged more than Sh200 million.

He hopes to join the lucrative marathon after the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Cheptegei is part of the NN Running team. He also joined the police five years ago and was promoted from a Special Police Constable to Inspector of Police, climbing four ranks, following the Commonwealth Games double gold in 2018.

He is working towards securing an Olympics gold medal and is on course to earning his place among Uganda’s greatest athletes ever.

And like Kipchoge says, the man who loves literature, is indeed poetry in motion!

***

Cheptegei’s triumphs

  • He is a four-time winner of the Zevenheuvelenloop 15km road race in Nijmegen, Netherlands.
  • Won the 10,000m silver medal at the World Championship in London in 2017
  • Crowned the 5,000m and 10,000m champion at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
  • Set a world record for the 15km road race in 2018. He clocked 41:05, improving by eight seconds the world record set by Leonard Komon at the Zevenheuvelenloop in 2010.
  • On December 1, 2019, he set a new 10km road race record in Valencia, Spain. His time of 26:38 improved by six seconds the previous world record set by Leonard Komon in 2010.
  • Crowned cross-country world champion in 2019 in Aarhus, Denmark.
  • Bagged 10,000m gold medal at the 2019 World Championships in Doha.
  • Set a new 5km world record of 12:51, breaking the event's 13-minute barrier, at a road race in Monaco this year. Kenya's Sammy Kipketer had set the previous record of 13:00 in 2000.
  • Last month, at the Monaco Diamond League meet, he set a new 5,000m world record of 12:35.36, breaking Kenenisa Bekele’s 16-year-old world record of 12:37.35.