Friends at home, but fierce rivals abroad

By Saddique Shaban

With an unrelenting pace and focus, two groups of athletes run on the opposite sides of the Kaptagat – Eldoret without as much as a tactical glance at each other.

In each group, comprising 12 to 18, runners are already soaking with sweat as early 6.30am. The groups then swap directions by crossing the road, almost instinctively and synchronised, and disappear into the adjacent forest, until they emerge again on their way back to the base.

Apart from an inscription on one of the leaders’ track suit, there is nothing else that may reveal their reference as "foreign natives" in their own homeland.

Qatari team, led by Ahmad Abdullah (Albert Chepkurui, left) train in Iten last weekend. They will challenge Kenya’s cross-country dominance in Amman. [PHOTO: SHADDIQUE SHABAN/KTN]

Or to a person familiar with the locations of the numerous athletics training camps on this famous part of the town.

The two groups are not only former Kenyan athletes now running for their adopted countries of Qatar and Bahrain, but are friends and relatives of the Kenyan athletes they will face off with in the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Amman, Jordan tomorrow.

Huge expectations

In a country where the exodus of athletes to the oil-rich gulf nations continues unabated, these young men and women have learned to train with their legs on the ground and their mind fixed on huge expectations bestowed on their fragile shoulders by their adopted countries – and that must include training in Kenya with Kenyans to beat them abroad.

"We are brothers. Most of us are related and even stay together at home. But we don’t live together in the camp", revealed Ahmad Hassan Abdullah, born Albert Chepkurui, the Asian Cross Country champion and Asian 10,000m record holder.

"Nothing has been lost other than our Kenyan citizenship. We respect Kenyans, but that won’t prevent us from challenging their cross country supremacy in Jordan.

For Abdullah, the Basharat Golf course in Amman, the venue of tomorrow’s World Cross, is an all-familiar track. "I have raced and won there and know the course like the back of my hand. While others are gathering intelligence on the course, I am mapping out my strategy," he said.

And as the team warms down after a rigorous 20km morning endurance run, the practice leader Felix Kikwai Kibore shouts instructions to his team across the expansive Kaptagat Sports Club.

Debut in Amman

"We are under pressure like everybody else. But ours is heavier because our adopted country wants glory. And we shall not let them down."

Kikwai will be making a debut in Amman. With the inclusion in the team of the world marathon silver medallist, Mubarak Shami, and the world 3,000m steeplechase record holder, Saif Saaeed Shaheen, the current team will no doubt rattle the level of confidence for dominants Kenya and Ethiopia in Jordan.

 

 

Read all about: Qatar Bahrain IAAF World Cross Country Championships Amman Jordan

 

 

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