Chirchir: Big force behind Team Kenya’s pre-Olympic training camp in Miramas
France-based Kenyan athlete Daniel Chirchir (second left) with officials from Athletics Kenya and Miramas City when the French delegation visited Nairobi in December, 2022. Chirchir has been instrumental in organising Team Kenya’s pre-Olympic training camp in Miramas, Southern France, ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games.
What you need to know:
- He has also opened the doors for many Kenyan runners into the European road running circuit and has always been at hand to receive Kenyan guests visiting Miramas, with the smile of a seasoned tour agent.
- “I have so far assisted over 20 athletes who come to run in France and then go back home,” he told Nation Sport Wednesday.
Daniel Chirchir was an average runner; a two-hours-21-minutes marathoner whose biggest achievements came in half marathons in France 10 years ago.
Second places in half marathons in Bourgen-Bresse (1:09:15) and Carhaix (1:10:52) in 2013 came before he joined the Athletic Club Miramas in 2014.
Chirchir, now 47, was an instant hit among the athletics-loving locals in this southern France community where he took up coaching in 2016 upon retirement from elite running, slowly nurturing young talent and training community members attached to the club.
Team Kenya has elected to pitch camp in Miramas ahead of next year’s Olympics and the choice by the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K) of the location wasn’t by chance.
Daniel Chirchir in Miramas, France.
It was a result of warm relations forged over the last decade by Chirchir and other elite Kenyan athletes, including steeplechaser Paul Kipsiele Koech, who made Miramas their second home.
“We started this (partnership with Team Kenya) journey eight years ago. It was first athletes from Kenya, like Daniel Chirchir and Paul Koech, who joined the Athletic Club Miramas and quickly developed family ties with the people of Miramas,” Miramas’ Deputy Mayor (in charge of sports) Eric Marchesi acknowledged to Nation Sport in Miramas recently.
Opened the doors
Chirchir has been central to the negotiations between Kenya’s Olympic committee and the city of Miramas that yielded the pre-Olympic training camp partnership.
Chirchir has been working closely with Patrice Ouvrier-Buffet, head of the Miramas Kenyan Olympic project, and Loic Piola — who is in charge of communications at Athletic Club Miramas — in the Paris 2024 Team Kenya camp.
He has also opened the doors for many Kenyan runners into the European road running circuit and has always been at hand to receive Kenyan guests visiting Miramas, with the smile of a seasoned tour agent.
Daniel Chirchir (left) pictured earlier this year with Athletics Kenya's Barnabas Korir, Patrice Ouvrier-Buffet, the head of the Miramas Kenyan Olympic project (right) and the Mayor of Miramas Frédéric Vigouroux.
“I have so far assisted over 20 athletes who come to run in France and then go back home,” he told Nation Sport Wednesday.
“This is where I built trust with Miramas, and the club started accepting the idea of putting together a strong athletics team. I’m grateful to my mentor Paul Tergat who helped develop me into an athlete,” Baringo-born Chirchir pays tribute to NOC-K President Tergat.
“Tergat helped me and other athletes when we were training with him in Ngong before he retired. Miramas is now the home of Kenyan athletes and I’m preparing to welcome Team Kenya here for the Olympics.
“I also appreciate the support received in the Miramas project from Athletics Kenya, right from the President Jack Tuwei, Barnabas Korir and Olympic committee officials led by secretary general Francis Mutuku,” he adds as Miramas celebrates one year to the Paris Games which start on July 26 next year.
