The world has been running on Kenyan legs and in 2029 it comes home to pay

USA's Cambrea Sturgis and Olympic champion Gabrielle Thomas compete in the 200m women's event during the sixth edition of the Kip Keino Classic Continental Tour Gold at the Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi. [AFP]

Nairobi's win in Budapest is not a trophy for the sports ministry. It is the first time this country gets to own the business it invented.

A man in Iten has spent 30 years building the careers of world champions, and has never once sat in a stadium where one of them was crowned. He knows the names of hills the rest of us have never heard of. He knows, to the second, what a runner should be doing on a wet Thursday morning in February to be ready for a final in August.