Kapsait school of champions now shuts its doors to student athletes

The Kapsait Athletics Secondary School on the border of West Pokot and Elgeyo Marakwet counties was intended to be a role model school where students balanced books and athletics.

The school was also primed to be a melting pot where students from the erstwhile not-so-friendly Pokot and Marakwet neighbours buried the hatchet from a young age.

And all seemed to be going according the plans of founder-director Eric Kimaiyo, a seasoned distance runner and former Honolulu Marathon champion.

Interest was shown by Japan’s Yamanashi Gakuin University and a partnership was mooted to help the student-athletes transition into professional running careers, probably in Japan where they would also further their education via athletics scholarships.

But as the plans gathered momentum, Kimaiyo, who also coaches women’s world marathon record holder Brigid Kogei, couldn’t shoulder the financial burden of running the school any more.

Appeals to the home county of Elgeyo Marakwet to help bail out the school fell on deaf ears and this month, the inevitable happened and the school closed.

A retired military man, Kimaiyo is popularly known as “Commando” due to his ability to multi-task and accomplish whichever task with consummate ease.

Kimaiyo is school director, financier, coach, driver, cook, administrator… all rolled into one.

But the financial burden of running the school and the adjacent Nike Kapsait Athletics Camp hit the “Commando” hard over the last few weeks, forcing him to raise the red flag and close the school, with about 130 students forced to relocate to other institutions of learning.

When Nation Sport visited the school on Wednesday, we found classes, staff room, headmaster’s office, dormitories all padlocked and deserted.

Next to the classes is a kitchen with a few wooden logs outside, which would have fuelled the students’ dinner.

Cobwebs are fast forming on the kitchen roof.

The school had developed a fairly decent academic record with three students having nailed C+ in the last Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education and will be heading to institutions of higher learning.

Nation Sport last year reported how the school had produced some of the best athletes in the country and needed help to stay afloat.

The North Rift region is well known as a good training environment having produced several world beaters, the most famous and successful being world marathon record holder Brigid Kosgei.

Her world record time of two hours, 14 minutes and 04 seconds in winning the 2018 Chicago Marathon catapulted Kapsait onto the global athletics radar.

For the uninitiated, the region has one of the most ideal altitude which goes up to 3,000 metres above the sea level.

It is also home to some of the best ultra-marathoners who compete in the 50, 90 or 100-kilometre races races across the world.

The over 130 students at the school were upcoming athletes who depended on well-wishers to continue with their education at the same time building up their running careers.

Kosgei would occasionally dig into her bank account and fork out race earnings to pay the fees for deserving cases.

World Under-20 Championships 5,000 metres champion Edward Zakayo, Leah Jeruto who competed at the World Under-18 Championships in Nairobi in the 400m hurdles race but has since changed to 800m, are just but an example of how the school has supported talent.

Form four student Winny Jepkosgei, a 3,000m specialist and Edward Mberia from Narok County, who followed in Zakayo’s footsteps, are some of the athletes affected by the school’s closure.

“It has been a big problem to maintain the students in school because they have always depended on me for food and the payment of teachers among other necessary things in the institution,” said a visibly distraught Kimaiyo.

He explained to us that he was forced to get loans from local banks to pay teachers and the subordinate staff.

“I wanted to support the upcoming talents by making sure that they also get basic education and it reached a point where I could go to the bank to seek for money to pay the staff,” he explained.

The student athletes have been struggling and at one time received a boost from the Yamanashi Gakuin University of Japan who donated training kits to needy students.

The kits were presented last year - before Covid-19 struck - by Koji Jitsukawa who is the executive director and head of African Region at the institution.

The kits included running singlets, t-shirts, shoes, stop watches among other facilities.

Zakayo, an alumnus of the school, said that it was sad to see students leave the compound despite the talent they had.

“It has been a challenge for our coach and seeing my fellow athletes whom we used to train leave to unknown future touched me a lot and I wish the government would have intervened to ensure the students remain in school,” said Zakayo.

Kimaiyo had donated his land for construction of classes but that now remains a dream due to lack of well-wishers.

No one has, meanwhile, taken up his offer of 10 more acres for expansion of the school, and Kimaiyo is now contemplating defecting to another country where his services may be more appreciated.

“There’s very little to show for the efforts that we put into developing world-beating Kenyan stars…. I’m running out of motivation,” he says, crestfallen as he pulls back the iron sheet gates to close the main entrance to a once promising venture that’s now degenerated into a warehouse of sorts for school desks and chairs which remind any visitor of what might have been a marvelous institution, should those in authority have responded to Kimaiyo’s patriotic call.