Recognising Winners

In the Sunday Nation of 10th November 2019, there was an opinion piece written by one Prof Makau Mutua, who is a distinguished professor of law in a university in the New York state of the US.

By the structure of his name, I can deduce that he is from a familiar area of Kenya not far from Nairobi. I do not yet know his full background especially in his chosen profession of law but he occasionally writes excellent commentaries about the goings on in our motherland. So much so that I wonder where he gets the time and energy to compose his vitriolic pieces while he is supposed to be leading a school of law in a US university.

But, no matter. My main concern is with the subjects he chooses to write about. As we say in intellectual circles: Truly esoteric. Meaning that it is difficult to pin him down on anything.

Eliud Kipchoge

It is my humble view that choosing to write a negative opinion about a Kenyan who has been an example of the best we can become if we put our mind to it was, to say the least, churlish and not worthy of a person with his title.

I will try to explain why I believe he was wrong.

By trying to denigrate the performance of Eliud Kipchoge in his attempt in Vienna to break the 2-hour marathon record, he showed me, at least, how little he knows about athletics in general and marathons in particular.

Before I go much further let me, in the interests of academic integrity, disclose that I have been an avid supporter of athletics since my high school days. In addition, I have been an occasional commentator on sports in our newspapers for a long time. The first commentary I ever did was during the 1972 Olympics in Munich when the quartet of Kenyans won the 400 men’s relay gold against all odds. A sight permanently etched in my mind.

The second major sportsman to capture my imagination was the young Tiger Woods who was, coincidentally, born in the same year and in the same city where I lived briefly in the US. Having picked on him when he was still young, I kept on writing about him and later encouraging young golfers at my club to emulate his prowess - like the hunting tactics of the animal he is named after.

Indomitable Winners.

Eliud Kipchoge is now 34 years old and comes from a humble background in the Nandi Hills of Kenya. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, was born near Los Angeles in 1975 the son of an African-American soldier and a Thai woman.

By the time Tiger was Kipchoge’s age, he had won every major golf title and was headed towards becoming the greatest golfer of all time. He is almost there. In the case of Kipchoge, he has been winning long distance races and marathons in particular since he was 19 years old.

Unknown to many Kenyans, Kipchoge holds the current marathon world record set in Berlin in September 2018 in a time of 2:01:39. His previous attempt to break the 2-hour barrier came in when he missed it by 26 seconds. In itself a remarkable achievement by a 33 year-old Kenyan from a place called Kapsisiywa.

So, when an unknown (by Kenyan standards) company called Ineos (a Greek word meaning “something new and innovative”) offered to facilitate his becoming the first human being to run the full marathon race in UNDER two hours, it was an offer that Kipchoge could not refuse. Just like his record- mate Tiger who just equalled the world winning record of 82 major golf titles.

In my humble view, it is simply a matter of time before Kipchoge breaks the marathon record in a competitive environment and then he will become another athletics icon like Roger Bannister who, in 1952, became the first human to run the legendary mile race in under four minutes - interestingly, by 20 seconds just like Kipchoge’s marathon feat in Vienna.

Back to the Point

It is easier to denigrate the performance of an exceptional human being than to praise him. That is a personal choice that people of Prof Makau’s mindset choose to take. It is their view and I begrudgingly respect their view.

However, it is so much easier to applaud a rare performance without looking for an excuse, however small, to lessen it. Unless, of course, there is evidence of any form of cheating - like the usual doping and use of unethical tactics.

In conclusion, I will say this using parlance he understands: Adduce irrefutable evidence or forever hold your peace. And something else: unacceptable comparisons are not appropriate in scientific enquiry.

Well done Kipchoge. Keep Running and Winning. The sky isn’t the limit because, in reality, there in no such thing as the sky.

JH Kimura, PhD
11th November 2019

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