Running using a guide’s eye: Kirui shares sobering experience working with visually impaired athletes

Kenya’s 1500m T11 athlete Mary Waithera Njoroge and her guide Bernard Korir. [Team Kenya Paralympics]

You think you have a difficult job until you meet a guide of a visually impaired Paralympic athlete. The guide wins no medal, yet for the visually impaired athlete to win one, the guide must be in sync with him or her.

He must, while in full flight, transmit to the completely or partially visually impaired athlete the correct energy, stride and strategy as precisely as possible and in the manner, the team’s head coach has instructed.