Could Italian researchers be opening new frontiers for Kenyan athletics?
What you need to know:
- Partnering with the University of Brescia in Italy, Mt Sinai Hospital’s Icahn School of Medicine in New York and Kenya’s Moi University, the doctorate student from northern Italy has been conducting a study on the athletic potential of the Maasai community.
In his book “Running for Black Gold” (2012), Kevin Lillis chronicles Africa’s dominance in middle and long-distance running, highlighting the continent’s steady rise in global competitions.
Lillis, an international professional educationist and amateur sportsman with a doctorate from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, analyses how the natural ability of African runners has eclipsed the scientific ways of their western rivals, leading to a steady rise in medal count from the days of Ethiopian marathon legend Abebe Bikila.
Italian sports researcher Gianluca Di Rosario in Nairobi on July 31, 2023.
“The half-century since Abebe Bikila won the Olympic gold medal in world record time in Rome in 1960 has been a golden period for African athletics,” he writes in his book’s introduction.
“The narrative has remarked many times with a sense of wonder and admiration at the brilliance of the cast of African runners, their grace, uninhibited speed, beauty and unbounded, unbridled ‘joie de vivre’ (exuberant enjoyment) and ‘joie de courir’ (joy of running) – kimbia bwana, kimbia (run man, run!),” Lillis concludes with a touch of humour.
The raw talent of Kenya and African athletes has been the subject of many other similar books, journals and studies that have, perhaps, eventually aided in the west narrowing the gap with Africa in track performances.
Italian sports researcher Gianluca Di Rosario with locals during his research in Kimanjo, Laikipia County, in July 2023.
Little wonder the likes of Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen have grabbed middle distance accolades from Africans…
Isn’t it then time for Africa to fire another salvo? Italian sports researcher Gianluca Di Rosario seems to think it is.
Partnering with the University of Brescia in Italy, Mt Sinai Hospital’s Icahn School of Medicine in New York and Kenya’s Moi University, the doctorate student from northern Italy has been conducting a study on the athletic potential of the Maasai community.
With his study work largely focused in Laikipia County, Di Rosario, is working in partnership with Gabrielle Rosa – better known in Kenyan athletics circles as simply “Dr Rosa” - the silver-haired Italian athletics tactician largely credited with igniting Kenya’s dominance in marathon running by launching the careers of the country’s trail-blazing marathon runners from the early 1990s.
From Di Rosario’s study project, five Maasai athletes have been identified from a pre-screening process (that is currently under ethical committee review at Moi University) to proceed to elite training at Dr Rosa’s camp in Kaptagat and test their ability to break into international, elite success.
Italian researcher Gianluca Di Rosario’s tests conducted include anthropometry (weight, height, mass index and body composition), fitness and wellness levels through the use of smartwatches and other wearable technologies.
The process involved 40 athletes, 20 morans from a rural setting and 20 others from urban dwellings.
Because besides putting athletics potential to the test, Di Rosario’s project seeks to also expose and address socio-economic shifts that increased the risk of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular, cancer, respiratory and diabetes.
“Through this initiative, we want to objectively monitor health indicators and lifestyles - with their fundamental role for well-being and diseases prevention – making use of some of the most advanced human-centred portable and wearable devices,” Di Rosario explains, hence his Kenyan sojourn where he has been carrying out the pre-screening tests mainly at Kimanjo in Laikipia County.
Medical doctor Alfred Saigero (right) closely follows as athlete Hudson Riopa goes on a pre-screening run fitted with VO2 mas measurement equipment in Kimanjo, Laikipia County in July 2023.
The tests conducted include anthropometry (weight, height, mass index and body composition), fitness and wellness levels through the use of smartwatches and other wearable technologies as well as tests on metabolism and maximum oxygen consumption.
Among the organisations partnering with Di Rosario is Italian non-governmental organisation NOHA (Network Organisation Health Association), Kenya’s “Apostles of Christ Shrine of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary”, represented by the Rector, Geoffrey Inira alongside the Rotary Club of Brescia, Comboni Fathers of Brescia, Kenya Airways and various departments at the University of Brescia.
It is Dr Rosa’s athletics management company, Rosa & Associati Group, that injected competition and sporting relevance to the studies, hoping that the five selected Maasai athletes will follow in the footsteps of world 800 metres record holder David Rudisha, by far the most successful athlete from the Maa community.
For the last three decades, Rosa & Associati Group have been organising the “Discovery Kenya” cocktail on cross country competitions and road races that have helped unearth Kenyan distance running talent.
Hopefully, their involvement in the Maa experience will help discover breakthrough running talent from the Maasai community, and also aid Di Rosario in unveiling important interventions that will arrest the worrying increase in lifestyle diseases.
“The indigenous peoples, repositories of millennia-old knowledge based on sharing and harmony with the natural environment, are a bulwark for ecosystem preservation, climate change mitigation and sustainability, on which the very survival and prosperity of our planet depends,” Di Rosario acknowledges.
It would be interesting to see what comes out of the Italian researcher’s findings, and whether this could be the antidote to the western world’s encroachment into Kenya’s distance running enclave.
“I hope we can implement something that has never been done before and the Kenyan people will be at the centre of this,” Di Rosario reflects in our conversation.
Di Rosario's research is being supported by New Yok-based Kenyan Dr Mathew Komen and Dr Alfred Saigero, a medical doctor at the Nanyuki Hospital.
To him and his associates, I say: “Grazie mille; ti auguro il meglio” (Thank you; all the best!)
Makori is the Lead Editor (Sports and Integration Projects) at Nation Media Group. [email protected]
