Thoughts from the 42nd IAAF World X-Country Championships: Kampala 2017


Joshua Cheptegei – the twenty-some Ugandan long-distance Athlete who missed out on athletic history by less than 60 seconds at the Kampala-held IAAF Cross-Country Champs in the Senior Men’s race last weekend, belongs right at the top of this nation’s hall-of-fame, less for what he failed to achieve, or what he might have achieved – and more for what he wrung his spirit and literally broke his body trying to accomplish.

Cheptegei – you have our eternal gratitude, for doing no less than running the race of your life. 

Having led the race for 9.7 kilometers, Cheptegei simply crushed physiologically – so he, eventually, not only lost gold to Kenya’s Kamworor, who was in far better shape and was the competition’s defending Champion – but Cheptegei didn’t even place among the top twenty.

What is clear, from watching the competition footage, is that Cheptegei’s body merely shut down in the last 300 or so meters.

Being present in the flesh on race-day, I can of course more than attest to the eye-witness unfolding of the lamentable incident.

A good Kenyan friend of mine and athletics aficionado, Nephat Maritim – who made the long trip from his work-posting in Dares Salaam to cheer on his countryman               Kamworor, attributed Cheptegei’s tragedy to a possible glucose inadequacy or sugar deficiency.

In technical parlance, Nephat informed me – this phenomenon is usually referred to as ‘‘hitting the wall’’.



Extreme left is Nephat, and between us is an official of the UAF, earlier in the day at the finish line



There are fellow Ugandans of course, no doubt sincerely concerned, whose superior ‘‘spiritual consciousness’’ led them to blame Kenyan wizardry for the dramatically unfortunate turn of events.

Some among this number went as far as tracing the ill-fate to Cheptegei’s own clansmen in Kapchorwa – whose jealousy of the runner’s potential success incentivized their bewitching of him.

For this school of rationale – a mean-spirited grandaunt somewhere, a barren and bitter spinster on the village, or a vile-hearted stepmother from a polygamous childhood are to blame.

The argument is redolent of the experience Moses Kipsiro – another star Ugandan athlete and Commonwealth Games Medalist had a few years back, when he publicly blamed his sickness and family troubles, which affected his running performance, on a witch-hunt mounted by envious members of his village in Kapchorwa.

This appeal to superstition, something many of our people do almost instinctively whenever tragedy strikes in their personal lives or in social situations – would be a humorous pettiness, if it wasn’t a woeful distraction and symptom of the deeper attitudinal malaises from which our people suffer.

But staying with Cheptegei and 26th March, 2017.

To add to the high anticipation of running for a host-nation, the presences of the country’s President – Y.K. Museveni, and his lately controversial First Lady; saddled the young Cheptegei with tremendous pressure to deliver on home-turf.

Like a band of hysterical children, the jubilant but naive Ugandan crowd egged him on, succeeding very much at getting Cheptegei prematurely excited – the likeliest reason he ultimately burnt too much energy in trying to establish a commanding lead much earlier than he should have.

The simple truth is that Geoffrey Kamworor, the impressive Kenyan athlete who eventually won, had more experience than our Cheptegei – who thought to shake off the pack with a whole lap and half of the race left.

Evidently bad strategy, for someone running singly against, and sandwiched between a well-coordinated Kenyan team of five athletes who are known, historically but also notoriously, to function as a self-supporting unit.

Unlike Jacob Kiplimo – the amazing youngster who won Uganda’s only and first-ever X-Country gold in the men’s Junior race, Cheptegei was racing against far fitter and far swifter runners, who had beaten him at recent Athletic Meets.

Kiplimo, on the other hand, is the reigning World Junior Champion over the 10,000 meter track race – where he beat the Kenyans hands-down last July in the final of the IAAF World U20-Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland.



The opportunist in me couldn't help grabbing a celebrity moment with the young hero, Jacob Kiplimo


What Cheptegei did therefore – leading the World Champion Kamworor, for so long (13 minutes) and by such a margin (almost 50m) was both unprecedented and heroic.

He staggered to the finish line, like one inebriated or maimed, without falling to the ground or getting assistance from any competition official, which would have resulted in disqualification.

He was only shoved forward once by a fellow competitor, an Ethiopian runner who must’ve been startled to see the erstwhile race-leader wobbling drunkenly in his path when twenty other racers had finished the race already.

Cheptagei’s resilience proved to be very important as he ended up being Uganda’s fourth and final scorer in 30th place – enabling Uganda to bag the Team Bronze ahead of Eritrea by just three (3) points.

Cheptegei, in the hearts of many of us, you will forever be an unrivalled hero for the fighting-spirit and raw sportsmanly brilliance you displayed.

It didn’t matter that the young brother didn’t fit the innumerable portfolios we place premiums upon today – he isn’t extracted from my Bantu ethnicity, he doesn’t speak my Runyakitara tongue, he certainly doesn’t worship the God I do.

It didn’t matter the reason he, at grave risk to life and limb, flung himself unrestrained into the race.  

Perhaps it was the alluring promise of $30,000 he couldn’t refrain from.

Whatever the reason was – the consequence of his endeavor was to galvanize our teetering fabrication of a country, albeit for a short interval only. 

For those twenty-seven minutes that Cheptegei led the race, he was a hero – our hero – and all these other petty and subjective labels we otherwise hold-onto took a back seat in lieu of this cosmetic Ugandan ‘identity’ that’s both been our blessing and curse this past half-century of our self-rule.

More than anything, Cheptegei (alongside Kiplimo and their several other of their remarkable predecessors) gave us better reason than any fiery patriotic speech ever delivered by our spurious political heads, or associated appeal to abstract nationalism, as to why our ex-British colony’s flag deserves to fly high – if only for a few fleetingly precarious moments.

For years to come, millions of little ‘‘Ugandan’’ boys and girls will look at the footage of that race and draw inspiration for their own undoubtedly troubled life’s races – on and off the track.

In a country that sorely wants for authentic heroes, for sons and daughters who may restore to us a severely depleted confidence in our intrinsic worth – Cheptegei came along waving the flambeau of redemption.

Only few other persons or assemblages have managed this miraculous feat before  the men’s soccer team, Stephen Kiprotich after his 2012 Olympic victory, and the very flamboyant kickboxing sensation Moses Golola as he primed for his face-off with the Hungarian Naggy in 2011.

The young Chep now joins those very quotidian, yet redoubtably remarkable ranks.

What a race, Joshua!

What a spirit! 



Cheptegei, in that fateful final totter




A few moments before the start of the champs, I was treacherously & unpatriotically hobnobbing with the Kenyan fans' contingent, alongside Nephat






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