Kenya: Star’s Athletics ‘Orphans’ Face Difficult Future

David Macharia and James Kariuki

18 May 2011

Nairobi — As the world continues to mourn the Olympic marathon champion Samuel Wanjiru, his athletics “orphans” in Nyahururu were pondering their next move following their loss.

Wanjiru was a very generous man and often assisted many budding athletes in his home town who were eager to follow in his footsteps.

In most instances, he supplied them with milk and fruits. There is also a training facility he helped set up and which he managed.

“There is no budding athlete training in Nyahururu who has not benefited from Kamau’s (Wanjiru) generosity,” said a Nyahururu-based coach Ibrahim Kinuthia.

One athlete said Wanjiru has been paying school fees for his son in a private school as well as assisting him with his own financial needs.

Kinuthia said the 2008 Beijing Olympics gold medalist used to feed all athletes from the Nyahururu Marathon Training Camp whenever they travelled to Nakuru for low altitude speed building.

Paid the bills

“He would take the whole team of about 20 runners to a hotel and tell them to take whatever they wanted and he would end up paying a bill of up to Sh20,000,” Kinuthia said.

Anthony Kahuthu, one of the runners at the marathon camp that is sponsored by Rosa Associate – a sports management entity run by Italian sports doctor Gabriela Rosa and his son Federico Rosa, who was Wanjiru’s manager, said the athletes at the facility hoped that the sponsorship would continue.

Kahuthu said one of the challenges travelling to local competitions since the deceased used to foot the expenses.

“We hope the camp’s foundation laid by Wanjiru including securing the sponsorship from Italy will be maintained,” Kahuthu said.

The coach in charge of the camp, Francis Kamau, hopes the the facility – which produced such runners as the 2005 10,000 metres World champion Charles Kamathi, Monica Wangare, who has a personal best of 2:42.56 in marathon achieved in Milano, Italy, this year, and 1:10.33 in half marathon achieved in the Praha half marathon – should continue receiving sponsorship from the Italians as a honour to the departed marathon icon.

Hone skills

Ann Wanjiru, a member of the national cross country team to Amman, Jordan, in 2009 and last year’s runners up at the Nairobi marathon Philemon Gitea are also in the camp.

Coach Kamau said the camp was set up by the Rosa Associate at the behest of Wanjiru who wanted a camp to tap and train marathon talents from around Nyahururu.

The deceased had been spotting talent and sponsoring them at the camp to hone their running skills.

A few months ago, he brought in two runners from Narok, Daniel Lesinko Pasiany and Charles Koshal after noticing great running potential in the former while the later was referred to the marathoner by another international runner.

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