{"id":424469,"date":"2011-05-16T01:50:45","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T01:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/"},"modified":"2011-05-16T01:50:45","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T01:50:45","slug":"kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Jonathan Komen<\/p>\n

15 May 2011<\/p>\n

\n

Nairobi \u2014 She went down in history, only aged 13, as Kenya’s first woman to win a gold medal at the IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1991.<\/p>\n

And although her athletics graph went up and down, Lydia Cheromei’s trophy cabinet keeps growing, with an impressive win (2:22.34) at the Volkswagen Prague Marathon last week.<\/p>\n

Cheromei, who bagged the junior title while still a Form One Student at the athletics-rich Sing’ore Girls High School in Keiyo, stands out in the world’s distance running despite heart-breaks occasioned by junior burn-out and a two-year doping ban.<\/p>\n

The fifth-born in a family of seven basks on her easy strides and a text-book long distance running gift, thanks her family’s background in athletics.<\/p>\n

Her father Samuel Cheromei and all her siblings are athletes. Her brothers Joseph (now her coach) and Jeremiah are former runners.<\/p>\n

Her smooth running style to the top of world athletics started while she was in Class Eight at Kapsigot Primary School in Koibatek District in 1990.<\/p>\n

Belief in self<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a girl, she trekked for five kilometres to school and believed she had a bright running talent even as most of her peers walked even longer distances.<\/p>\n

“I was talented in athletics from the start. I tried other sporting events, but I did not succeed. Running simply looked the best sport.<\/p>\n

“My father was a runner and competed against veteran athletes like Kipchoge Keino and won prizes,” Cheromei told Monday Sport last Wednesday at her home in Eldoret.<\/p>\n

She grew up in Sawich Village near Eldama Ravine, mixing household chores and farm duties, but still focused on class work.<\/p>\n

She wanted to excel in academics and get a good job until one day in Class Eight when she tried running and won a girls’ 10,000m race.<\/p>\n

And the rest is history. “I was motivated by the win and decided to pursue competitive running.<\/p>\n

“I won all my races and made the team to the 1990 World Juniors in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, where I won bronze in the 10,000m race.<\/p>\n

“It was encouraging. I imagined how I had won a bronze medal without serious training,” said the athlete.<\/p>\n

She stands among a handful of Kenya’s most consistent female runners. In February 1991, she was admitted to Form One at Sing’ore Girls and that cross-country season, the highly-talented Cheromei entered junior women’s races in the local series and win all of them.<\/p>\n

Cheromei says her brilliant showing earned her respect among senior students and was not bullied even as a Form One student.<\/p>\n

She won the junior title at the national trials and was to the team for her first residential camp in Embu.<\/p>\n

She strolled to unexpected victory at the World Cross-Country Championships, becoming Kenya’s first woman to win the gold medal in the speciality.<\/p>\n

“That was unbelievable. It laid the foundation for Kenyan women in cross-country running,” said Cheromei, a mother of one.<\/p>\n

At that point, Bro Colm O’Connell, an athletics coach and lay missionary based in Iten, enrolled her into his holiday training programme for student athletes in the North Rift.<\/p>\n

O’Connell said Cheromei makes the 25 per cent of Kenyan women who shine at both junior and senior ranks.<\/p>\n

“She started so well and I realised her potential at an early stage. Running for 21 years now makes her inspirational to most Kenyan women runners,” said O’Connell, who prepared Cheromei for the 1991 World Cross-Country.<\/p>\n

She trained with elite runners, among them former world 800m record holder Wilson Kipketer of Denmark and former Olympic 3,000m steeplechase silver medallist Wilson Boit Kipketer, veterans Susan Chepkemei, Caroline Kwambai, Lenah Chesire and Catherine Kirui.<\/p>\n

At 14, she was ruled under-age and was kept out of the team to the World Athletics Championships in Japan later that year.<\/p>\n

At that time, Sister Christine Haverine, then the principal of Sing’ore Girls School, guided her while O’Connell ran the holiday programme.<\/p>\n

She won silver<\/strong><\/p>\n

She returned to the 1992 World Cross-country in Boston, USA, winning silver in the junior category before forming the 1992 Olympic Games national team in the 10,000m race.<\/p>\n

“Although I did not perform well, I became the youngest athlete in the Olympic Games. I lost the 10,000m final (there were no heats then) as a young girl in Barcelona,” she says.<\/p>\n

She then took years away from competition, citing a burn-out, and returned in the mid-nineties at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

“I stayed away to concentrate on class work,” she says. She remained largely inactive between 1994 and 1997, but in between won bronze in the 5,000m race at the 1995 All Africa Games.<\/p>\n

She was a finalist at the Atlanta Olympic 5,000m race and admits her performance has dipped slightly.<\/p>\n

Finalist in Athens<\/strong><\/p>\n

She was a finalist at the 10,000m in the 1997 World Championships in Athens and 2000 Olympics.<\/p>\n

Her house is decorated with her pictures at the podium in various global track and road races, but she regrets missing out on a podium appearance at the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

She hopes to make up for this next year in London. The mother of one has had a dismal showing despite making the cut for three editions of Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

The runner, who trains under Italian manager Gianni Demadonna, did not compete from 2000 to 2004 over yet another burn out and missed another two years of competition after a positive doping test in 2006.<\/p>\n

She returned to win the 2008 Amsterdam Marathon in a course record (68:35).<\/p>\n

This year, she was second (2:23.01) at the Dubai Marathon behind Ethiopia’s Aselefech Mergia and set a new course record at the Prague Half Marathon (1:07.33) before blazing the trail last week in 2:22.34 course record and Personal Best.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nMore News on allAfrica.com<\/strong><\/legend>\n<\/fieldset>\n

AllAfrica – All the Time<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Read More:
\nKenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Komen 15 May 2011 Nairobi \u2014 She went down in history, only aged 13, as Kenya’s first woman to win a gold medal at the IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1991. And although her athletics graph went up and down, Lydia Cheromei’s trophy cabinet keeps growing, with an impressive win (2:22.34) at the Volkswagen Prague Marathon last week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":398134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-424469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"yoast_head":"\nKenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Kenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Jonathan Komen 15 May 2011 Nairobi \u2014 She went down in history, only aged 13, as Kenya's first woman to win a gold medal at the IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1991. And although her athletics graph went up and down, Lydia Cheromei's trophy cabinet keeps growing, with an impressive win (2:22.34) at the Volkswagen Prague Marathon last week.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ghanamma\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ghanamma\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\",\"@id\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"Kenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-05-16T01:50:45+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/\"},\"wordCount\":971,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"articleSection\":[\"Local News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/\",\"name\":\"Kenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks - Ghanamma.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-05-16T01:50:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"\",\"contentUrl\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/\",\"name\":\"Ghanamma.com\",\"description\":\"News In Ghana - Latest Ghana News Headlines\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Kenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks - Ghanamma.com","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Kenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks - Ghanamma.com","twitter_description":"Jonathan Komen 15 May 2011 Nairobi \u2014 She went down in history, only aged 13, as Kenya's first woman to win a gold medal at the IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1991. And although her athletics graph went up and down, Lydia Cheromei's trophy cabinet keeps growing, with an impressive win (2:22.34) at the Volkswagen Prague Marathon last week.","twitter_creator":"@ghanamma","twitter_site":"@ghanamma","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/"},"author":{"name":"","@id":""},"headline":"Kenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks","datePublished":"2011-05-16T01:50:45+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/"},"wordCount":971,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"","articleSection":["Local News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/","url":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/","name":"Kenya: Cheromei Overcame Barriers to Shine in All Ranks - Ghanamma.com","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"","datePublished":"2011-05-16T01:50:45+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/16\/kenya-cheromei-overcame-barriers-to-shine-in-all-ranks\/#primaryimage","url":"","contentUrl":""},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/","name":"Ghanamma.com","description":"News In Ghana - Latest Ghana News Headlines","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}