Follow the money
A major motivation — and risk — for Kenyan runners

by Scott Douglas

There are, of course, many countries besides Kenya where $20,000 can change someone's life; if all it took were financial incentives to create running powerhouses, the internet would be full of speculation about why Bangladesh's marathoners are so good. But in the positive-feedback cycle of Kenyan running — where hard training at altitude builds on genetics, culture, and tradition, and where others' success spurs on each new crop of aspiring runners — monetary motivation is a key ingredient. Especially since open professionalism came to road racing, young Kenyans have seen their neighbors train hard for a few years, go overseas for a few months, and return able to purchase farms, buildings, and other investments. Cheboiboch, for example, owns Iten's sole gas station and has built a private primary school a few kilometers away. In a small town where everyone literally knows everyone else's business, and among people who mostly grow up with neither running water nor electricity, and where most of the kids you see when you're running are barefoot, it's hard to overstate the lure of money. After all, if the running doesn't pan out after a few years, it's not as if you've done irreparable damage to your career. The maize farms will always be there.

As an American, it's kind of funny to think of distance runners as financial drivers, but that's how it is in the Western Highlands arc of Iten, Kaptagat, and Eldoret, the 200,000-person city that sits between the two training meccas. For starters, money from running has affected the area's traditional way of making a living, farming. Jay Bawcom, an American who helped create the Kaptagat-based Chepkero A.C., says, "The influx of running-generated capital in the Kalenjin community has led to an upswing in mechanized farming in the area. Many runners have used their earnings to buy tractors and combine harvesters, allowing many local farmers to shift from drought-sensitive corn to more resistant wheat."

Most of the businesses started in Iten over the past few years are either owned by or cater to runners. Housing options have also increased for runners with a little money from overseas races — newish apartments just off of one of the main training roads count among their renters former Chicago Marathon champion Joyce Chepchumba and 7:28 3,000m runner James Kwalia. Lornah Kiplagat and her husband, Pieter Langerhorst, have built a New Mexico-style house in Iten along the Rift Valley escarpment.

Over in Kaptagat, training camps with new, modern buildings owned by foreign athletic management companies sit behind locked gates. Just outside of Eldoret, a gated community's occupants include world steeplechase world record holder Saif Saaeed Sheehan (formerly Stephen Cherono); former Boston Marathon champion Moses Tanui; former steeplechase and 5,000m world record holder Moses Kiptanui; and 3,000m world record holder Daniel Komen. In Eldoret proper, it doesn't take much poking around to learn which residents of that gated community own which office buildings. (Moses Kiptanui owns the city's newest supermarket.) And when traveling between, say, Iten and Eldoret, when crammed with 20 others into a van spewing exhaust, it's no doubt quite easy to spot the famous runners in their SUVs and to think, "If they can do it, so can I."

Fool's Gold?
Sport history is full of tales of athletes undone by sudden, unimaginable wealth, and Kenyan runners are no more immune to this possibility than, say, American boxers. According to Colm O'Connell, who has coached in Kenya for more than 25 years, five-time world cross country champion John Ngugi and 1992 Olympic 800m silver medalist Nixon Kiprotich are just two former world-class Kenyans living in poverty, owing to their inability to manage their money.

Less drastic but still cautionary is the story of someone like Daniel Komen. "Daniel is someone who quickly came into money and did not know what to do with it," says O'Connell. "He had to have a fleet of cars and the best suits from London. His wedding, there were 3,000 guests, with choirs from Tanzania. He had to have the biggest house in Eldoret — if someone built one bigger, he'd build another one." Langerhorst told me that he had recently seen Komen, who stated, "You are building a new house." "Yes," Langerhorst replied. "How many bedrooms?" Komen asked. "Two," said Langerhorst. "I thought you were building a house!" Komen exclaimed. "I have 10 bedrooms!" Langerhorst replied, "But you only have two kids." One day O'Connell returned from Eldoret and told me, "I saw Daniel. He was nattily dressed, as always, but one can start to see the cracks." I mentioned that Komen had rabbited the Chicago Marathon that fall. "Now why would he do that five years after retirement if he didn't need the money?" O'Connell asked.

As coach Renato Canova noted in this MensRacing.com interview, another problem presented by money is that it can distract runners from reaching their potential. O'Connell cites 1,500m runner Cornelius Chirchir as someone with "fabulous talent" who has never achieved what he might have. "Cornelius sees that he train for a while, win a few races in Europe, get a lot of money," says O'Connell. "Then he would spend it lavishly, fall out of training. When his money is used up, then he sees he needs to win again, and starts training." Canova and Langerhorst both speak of runners who win money in marathons, start businesses in Kenya, and either stop training or try to train before and after spending all day tending to their investments.

There are more immediate dangers to becoming a suddenly-rich runner. According to Langerhorst, soon after an unknown runner won last fall's Nairobi Marathon, "Five or six guys turned up at his place with AK-47s saying, 'We need your prize earnings.' He was able to explain he didn't' have the money yet, and they went away." Others haven't been as lucky — former Boston Marathon winner Lameck Aguta was nearly beaten to death by bandits, and former Chicago Marathon champion Ondoro Osoro has been attacked twice, including being shot in the neck.

After a race in Kaptagat one day, Langerhorst introduced me to a young man who had trained with Lornah Kiplagat for two months in Switzerland. The runner told Langerhorst that he had recently won 20,000 shillings for taking third in a marathon in Uganda. "This is fantastic," Langerhorst said with a broad grin. "When we met him, he had nothing. He didn't have clothes to train in." Then Langerhorst turned to the runner and said, "Be smart with your money. Put it in a bank."

(Posted June 16, 2005)