Ndereba talks up Kenya’s chances of winning marathon gold, 2008 heartbreak

In a wide-ranging interview with Nation Sports, the 52-year-old Ndereba who is a Commissioner of Prisons attached to the Sports and Correctional Services Department at the Kenya Prisons Headquarters in Nairobi has said Kenya’s marathon team of women’s defending champion Peres Jepchirichir, and debutantes Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi are world-class athletes capable of beating any opponent in Paris on  August 10.

“Parisians love sports, which is an aded advantage to Kenyan marathoners, so they will cheer our athletes for company. Kenyan marathoners should employ team work, and aim for gold medal rather than the world record. Marathon is a journey, and they should run as a team,” Ndereba, who won silver in women’s marathon at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and 2008 Beijing Olympics, told Nation Sport on Friday.

“As long as Kenyan marathoners acclimatise to the heat in Paris, they stand a good chance of winning there,” Ndereba, who is popularly known as  ‘Catherine the Great’ in Kenya’s athletics scene, said.

Reigning champion Eliud Kipchoge will represent Kenya in men’s marathon alongside London Marathon champion Alexander Mutiso, and Tokyo Marathon champion Benson Kipruto.

Ndereba also won gold in women’s marathon at the 2003 World Athletics Championships in Paris in two hours, 23 minutes and 55 seconds, and at the 2005 World Athletics Championships in  Osaka,  Japan  (2:30:37).

Ndereba knows the streets of Paris like the back of her hand. She is only one of two Kenyan athletes to have left Paris with gold medals in a major global championship. The other is Kipchoge whose presence in the French capital city carries a lot of emotional significance.

Also Read: Heroes abroad, abused at home: The sad story of Kenyan female athletes

On August 31, 2003 during the 2003 World Athletics Championships in Paris, Team Kenya officials and athletes were staring at the grim prospects of returning home without a gold medal after nine days of anxiety and frustration. Kenyan athletes had fallen by the way side in all events, including men’s 3,000 metres steeplechase which was won by Saeed Saif Shaheen of Qatar, previously Stepehen Cherono of Kenya.

Before the championship, Kenya had been basking in collective optimism following victory of the National Alliance of Rainbow Coalition (Narc)  administration which had won the General Election, ending President Daniel arap Moi's 24 year-year reign only seven months earlier.

Kenya's men’s cricket team had earlier in the year reached a historic World Cup semi-final in Johannesburg, South Africa.

But the Paris World Championships team was not following this optimistic script. Team Kenya House in Paris was in disarray, with accusations, allegations and denials flying from all directions as to why Kenya had accepted to release Shaheen to Qatar on a championship year preceding an Olympic Games edition of 2004 in Athens, Greece.

Luckily, the highly religious Ndereba was emerging from the ranks as the best road runner in the world then. She prayed a lot the previous evening. Yesterday, she admitted that through divine intervention, her spirituality and physical preparedness saw her snake through the streets of Paris, cheered on by over 50,000 Parisians,  as she returned to the Stade de France at 4:40pm as the World Athletics Championship winner.

Relieved, officials gave each other a pat on the back, assured that the demon of failure had been exorcised by Ndereba, a senior Prisons officer who has also won the Boston Marathon four times, and triumphed in Chicago Marathon twice. She set a new world record in the marathon of 2:18:47 in 2001 Chicago Marathon.

There was double celebration  for Kenya as exactly two hours later after Kipchoge, only 18 then, engaged Hicham el Gerrouj of  Morocco and Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia who had already won the 1,500 m and 10,000m respectively in a thrilling final sprint, dipping ahead of the trio to win Kenya's second gold medal at the championships. He clocked 12:52.79, followed by El Gerrouji in 12:52.83, and Bekele in 12:53.12

Kipchoge will once again close the Olympics marathon day on August 11, and if successful, leave the stadium as he left 21 year ago: a champion

Missing gold...finding God

Ndereba, who is actively involved in athletics management at Kenya Prisons, recalled her victory then, as well as the two occasions when she missed Olympics marathon gold medal - in 2004 and 2008 but found God.

“Athens was a furnace and self-inflicted pain of dicing with death from heat stroke," said Ndereba, who was an ordinary athlete but immediately started serious running after joining Kenya Prisons in 1994.

“I had prepared very well in Athens despite my American management firm headed by coach Lisa Buster, and friends urging me not to go to Athens in the summer, saying the heat would roast me internally. But I was determined to go to fulfill a childhood ambition of wearing the national team colours,” she recalls.

“My sponsor Nike wanted me to go, so they designed an ice vest which I put in a deep freezer and wore on race day under my running vest to absorb the heat. I didn't not expect to finish on a high, but I saw the vision of the Lord. I had asked him to assist me conquer the course.

“But I lost gold medal in Beijing when I was at my best, and although I don't regret it, I still don't understand how I failed to see the winner in time until at the last 2km, by which time it was too late,”  recalled Ndereba.

“Coach Julius Kirwa maintains that he shouted at me to alert me that I was in bad company with the leading pack, urging me to move ahead. But I don’t recall hearing this,” Ndereba said.

“I was a late starter, and preferred picking up speed as the race progressed. So soon I caught up with the lead pack in the race and joined Martha Komu and Salina Kosgei, running as a team, and calculating when to strike,” she recalls.

Ndereba had won her second world title in the 2007 Osaka World Athletics Championships in a textbook display of team work on the final morning of the championships, running alongside Edith Masai, Rita Jeptoo and Rose Cheruiyot. She won in 2:3037, followed by Chinese Zhou Chunxio (2:30:45) and Japanese Reiko Tosa (2:30:55) in the presence of 500,000 residents of Osaka.

Jeptoo, a previous winner of Boston, had been on the lead until the last 4km when dropped to seventh, followed by Masai.