Kemboi thanks family after golden triumph in Berlin

By Mutwiri Mutuota in Berlin

As darkness fell over Berlin on Tuesday three hours after day turned to night back in his homeland 6,089km away, Ezekiel Kemboi’s party was just beginning.

"I high time for me to celebrate and I dedicate this gold to my wife Jane Kemboi for all the support and encouragement she gave me that one day, I will win the World Championships. She also prepared very nice food for me," Kemboi, fresh from becoming Kenya’s eighth winner of 3,000m steeplechase gold at World Championships, said.

"I also wish to thank my two boys, Kiprono and Kipruto Kemboi who told me, daddy, don’t come back home without the medal. After all those silvers, finally it’s gold."

It took six years for Kemboi to bag only major international gold medal missing from his trove after being forced to accept silver, twice by Qatari Saif Saeed Shaheen (2003 and 2005) and the man he dethroned in Berlin, Brimin Kipruto in Osaka.

"I was comfortable with sticking behind (Paul Koech) Kipsiele and with 400m to go; I attacked and pulled away at the last water jump.

"Looking up the screen, I saw three runners coming very fast behind me and I decided to stick to the second lane where I could see any runner attacking from either inside or outside," he revealed.

His run to victory, achieved in a championship record of 8:00.43, was copycat version of technique employed by another steeplechase great, Moses Kiptanui, who won the world title in 1991, 1993 and 1995.

"Since the turn of the year, Kiptanui has been my coach," he let the cat out of the bag. "I’m his neighbour and to break his championship record also made me very proud," he added. Kiptanui held the previous championship best of 8:04.16 set at the 1995 edition in Gothenburg.

"I see myself running in marathon in the next two years," Kemboi, who left Germany yesterday for home to train for Zurich Grand Prix (August 28) said.

He also explained the colourful hairstyle he spotted at the final that had a Nike logo shaved at the back of his head.

"I have a friend in Germany who came to visit us at our Berlin Berlin Hotel and asked me either to allow him to cut my hair or to decorate my nails. I chose the haircut and the Nike sign.

"They are my sponsors and I know winning and showing their label made them happy. Before Zurich, I will get another one," as he rose for cameramen to photograph his hairdo.

Later, he gave journalists an opportunity to pose with his medal before signing autographs with delighted fans.

He explained Kenya’s dominance in steeplechase running thus: "If Kenyans compete in 100m and 200m, and they would finish number 1,000 with the likes of Usain Bolt running for Jamaica. If Jamaicans and Americans compete in 3,000m steeplechase, they would finish number 1,000. So let everybody have his own race."

On a more sombre note, he urged his compatriots to be wary of freeing the goose that has laid golden eggs at major events.

"It’s not a Kenyan thing anymore. We have French, South African, Moroccan, Spanish and other runners who are coming in and we have to be careful."

Meanwhile, One day Usain Bolt is going to do something that a normal human being might do. He’ll spill his tea, or drop his chicken nuggets, or trip over his shoelaces.

One day. For now, he astonishes and astounds with everything he does. Maurice Greene, a former 100m world champion and world record holder, summed it up beautifully: "The Earth stopped for a second, and he went to Mars."

Almost exactly 73 years ago in this Olympiastadion, Jesse Owens produced an athletic performance that made sporting history. Before Sunday night, it seemed impossible that anyone could ever match those deeds. That was before 9.58 seconds. That was before Usain landed.

Sometimes with moments like this it’s the small details that can be the most revealing. Tyson Gay ran 9.71 secs and was nowhere. Well, second. That’s the fastest an American has ever run, a time that would have won every other world championship there’s been by a massive margin.

Bolt wins races by the sort of distance that would be considered a spanking in a 400m contest. He behaves in a manner that the sport has never seen before, and then runs times that no-one believed they would ever see.

Greene reckoned he might one day see a low 9.6 but never a 9.5. His predecessor as the fastest man in history, Donovan Bailey, thought the same.

When Bolt ran 9.69 secs last summer in Beijing, even that seemed an impossible time. To take another 11 hundredths of a second off that defies logic, history and everyone else’s biology.

The world record has never before been broken by a margin that big, not in the modern era of computerised timing. Five men have never before run under 9.93 seconds in the same race.

— Additional reporting by Agencies

 

 

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