Kenya: Wanjiru’s Final Leap

Chris Musumba

16 May 2011

Nairobi — Samuel Wanjiru’s exploits in athletics will be remembered for long.

Yet it is the manner in which he leapt to his death that will forever be in many people’s minds.

The 24-year-old runner died late Sunday after jumping from a balcony at his Nyahururu home.

Police sources said Wanjiru jumped to stop his wife from leaving the house after she discovered him with another woman.

The balcony is between 13 and 19 feet high. Wanjiru landed on a hard surface.

He was the most expensive athlete in Kenya’s marathon history, earning over Sh21 million ($250,000) in appearance fee and endorsements.

This is a fee that only two other athletes, World and Olympic 100m champion Usain Bolt and Ethiopia’s world marathon record holder Haile Gebrselassie, earn when they compete in top races.

Wanjiru, 24, was the Beijing Olympics marathon champion. His rise to stardom is unrivalled. Habitually, anybody can make history; but only a great man Wanjiru could write it.

Silver medallist

Brought up by Anne Wanjiru, a single mother, Samuel (Wanjiru) left his home in Nyahururu at 15 to go to Japan on an education scholarship.

It was something of a trend at the time for Kenyans to go to Japan that began way back in the 1980s by Douglas Wakiihuri, who won marathon gold at the 1987 World Championships and silver in the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

Wanjiru won Kenya’s first ever gold medal in Olympics marathon in Beijing in 2008.

It ended 52 years’ wait since Kenya’s inaugural appearance in the Games. Interestingly, it was just Wanjiru’s third attempt at the 42km distance.

Born in Nyahururu, Wanjiru went to Japan in 2002 to go to the Sendai Ikue High School where he trained as an athlete.

He represented the Toyota Kyushu Company and was coached by Japanese Koichi Morishita, the silver medallist at the 1992 Olympic Games marathon.

Maiden appearance

In June 2008, he returned to Kenya from Japan to live with his wife Triza, who had delivered their first born, Ann Wairimu. In the same year, he was named the Kenyan Sportsman of the Year.

Two months before his 19th birthday in September 2005, Wanjiru set his first world record with a 59:16 at the Rotterdam Half-marathon.

However, Gebrselassie lowered that record to 58:55 in 2006 but Wanjiru ran 58:53 at Ras al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates in February 2007, though lack of post-race EPO test prevented it from ratification.

That didn’t turn out to be critical as Wanjiru went on to post an official world record of 58:33 at Den Haag half marathon in The Hague a month later.

Wanjiru’s marathon debut was eagerly awaited and while he couldn’t make a prospective appearance at the New York City marathon, he came through with flying colours in Japan in December 2007.

At the Fukuoka Marathon, he not only won but set a new course record of 2:06:39. In his first race of 2008, Wanjiru broke Gebrselassie’s course and Spanish all-comers’ half-marathon record with a 59:26 victory at Granollers Town, near Barcelona.

He set another record of sorts with the highest ever road racing payday when he earned Sh25 million ($300,000) for a 1:00:33 win at the Zayed International Half-Marathon in Abu Dhabi in late February.

At the 2008 London marathon, just his second 42.2km race, Wanjiru gave the experienced winner Martin Lel a tough time.

He wound up just nine seconds behind him in 2:05:24, to become the then fifth fastest marathoner of all-time.

Four months later, Wanjiru moved up on the list of the greatest distance runners in history by becoming the first Kenyan to win the Olympic Marathon gold medal, the only medal missing in the illustrious collection of icons Paul Tergat and Gebrselassie.

In 2009, he missed the world marathon record time, but set a new London course record that plummeted his single race earnings to a high of Sh26 million ($305,000) in just 2:05;09 of running, which was his personal best time.

That performance saw him pocket an appearance fee worth $100,000 (Sh8.5m), alongside the $150,000 (Sh12.75m) prize money plus the $55,000 (Sh4.7m) course record fee after he improved Martin Lel’s time of 2:05;15 which he had set last year when he bettered the previous London best of 2:05.38 set by Khalid Khannounchi in 2002.

Wanjiru also received further monies from endorsement from Japan’s Toyota where he was employed as a mechanic and Nike Sports Wear for donning its kit.

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