Remembering Marathoning Great Sammy Wanjiru – by Sean Hartnett

Reigning Olympic Champion Samuel Kamau Wanjiru may well have been the fiercest competitor ever to take on the marathon distance. Unfortunately we will never know if he would also have become the fastest and most accomplished marathoner, as the 24-year-old Kenyan died in a tragic fall off a balcony at his Nyahururu home on May 16.

The athletics world lost a great champion and a catalyst for a new generation of fearless marathoners and tragically gained further appreciation for the heavy burden that fame and riches places on young lives.

Wanjiru’s defining moment came at the 2008 Beijing Olympics when he defied sweltering heat and marathon logic and tradition to exuberantly claim Kenya’s first marathon gold medal with a brilliant deployment of ballistic pacing.

Wanjiru relentlessly pushed the pace from the gun, running the opening 25K under 2:05 pace and dispatching all but four competitors. "My plan was to push the limits, push my body, Wanjiru explained. “Our Kenyan bodies are not used to a slow pace, and a slow pace would have been suicidal.”

While the pace inevitably slowed, Wanjiru, just 21 years old, pulled away to secure the gold medal in an Olympic record 2:06:32. Even this record time was secondary to the radical way that Wanjiru took control of this classic endurance race on the world’s biggest stage. To many observers it was the greatest marathon ever run.

While Wanjiru’s win was unexpected and unorthodox, in retrospect it was the culmination of six years of targeted preparation on the Japanese high school and corporate running circuits. As a roster exemption Kenyan, Wanjiru emerged as the prototype hybrid of two great marathon cultures—born to bound effortlessly about the Rift Valley Hills, and calloused to pain and distance with the Japanese mind & body training regimen.

Amid voluminous training and relentless racing, Wanjiru stood out with his ability to cover ground at high rates of speed and win races, be they in track, cross country or the annual series of Ekiden road races.

In 2004 Wanjiru ran 13:12 for 5,000 meters, as a 17 year-old student at Kendai high school, and a year later signed on with the Toyota racing team based in Fukuoka. Prospering under the guidance of Barcelona Olympic marathon silver medalist Koichi Morishita, Wanjiru fully caught the world’s attention in August of 2005 when he ran a WJR 26:41.75 for 10,000 meters to finish 24 seconds behind Kenenisa Bekele’s world record in Brussels, and two weeks later blitzed a World Record half-marathon, running in 59:16 in Rotterdam.

Yet the heavy training at such a young age brought injury and disappointment in 2006 and Wanjiru could only watch the IAAF World Cross Country Championships staged in Fukuoka, his adopted hometown.

Wanjiru fully committed his talents to the roads in 2007, and started the year with two half-marathon World Records, running 58:53 in February and 58:33 in March. Sammy finished the year with a 2:06:39 course record win in his marathon debut in Fukuoka.

“It was my first attempt and my assignment was to run with patience at 3:00 kilometers,” he said.

Wanjiru took that patience to London the following April and withstood every challenge save Martin Lel’s blistering kick to finish 2nd in 2:05:24 and secure a spot on the Kenyan Olympic team. That set the stage for his Beijing triumph.

After his Olympic win, Wanjuri chose to terminate his Toyota contract and heavy racing schedule, and returned to Kenya to focus solely on the marathon under the direction of Claudio Berardelli, who heads up manager Federico Rosa’s training camp near Eldoret.

Wanjiru backed up his Beijing victory in 2009, turning back all challengers with course record wins in London (2:05:10) and Chicago (2:05:41). Once again it was racing strategy and style, not time, that defined Wanjiru’s dominance.

With years of Ekiden series as primal training, Sammy flowed effortlessly over the road. Ever alert and at the front, Wanjiru always ran the perfect line on tangents and through turns and aid stations.

Wanjiru’s success at the marathon at such a young age reflects that he was just fundamentally stronger than this arduous race. Sammy revealed, “My favorite training is the endurance, the up-down long runs of 35 and 40 kilometers in the hills.”

Wanjiru’s training produced a set of massive quad muscles and a solid core that delivered power to his 5’ 4” frame, even with brazen pacing.

Indeed, this penchant for brazen pacing may well be Sammy’s lasting imprint on the marathon. Running against the grain of prudent negative-split marathon pacing, Wanjiru ha initiated a paradigm shift in racing tactics evidenced in Bejing and his 2009 London win, where he pushed the field through the opening 10 miles in 46:24—2:01:39 pace.

Naysayers point to Wanjiru’s PR of 2:05:10 that ranks him as the 11th-fastest legal marathoner. Wanjiru simply looked for the win, noting “I like the high pace, You must do that tactic to kill the other people.” Wanjiru’s success with this tactic reflected his compelling course presence that drew his competitors into his ferocious pace, and in doing so forced them to Plan B or C. Most athletes pay a great price for imprudent pacing, but Sammy seemed to thrive on ballistic starts and radical surges as time after time he was able to land back on his feet like a cat, and launch another attack.

Sammy had the ability to defy the marathon distance like few other athletes. His 2009 win in Chicago will be remembered for a flat out 500-meter mid-race sprint. Approaching the 20K aid station, Sammy dropped off the front to chat with training partner Isaac Macharia who had a stitch. Rounding a turn to cross over the Chicago River Bridge, Sammy looked up to see that his competitors had seized on this opportunity to make a break. His reaction was a full sprint that closed a 30-meter gap. And he just kept going, instantly shredding a 15-runner pack, leaving just three contenders and a tired pacer.

Beyond the strength and mechanics was a fierce competitor who first and foremost wanted to win. His 2010 win in Chicago remains a full testament to his will to win. Ravaged by intestinal virus a fortnight before the race, Wanjuri toed the line far off top form, but prevailed in a prodigious final 7K slugfest with Ethiopian Tsegaye Kebede.

After the race, Sammy recalled his thoughts during this classic battle to the finish line, saying, “You don’t think about the finish time. It is like the Olympics or World Championships; everybody thinks about the medal. Today was like that, I was thinking who was going to finish first. Kebede is my friend but today was about fighting together. He is my friend but when you go to the race you must fight each other.”

Heading up Michigan Ave on Chicago’s south side, the marathon world got a 20-minute video tutorial on what was already common knowledge in Japan and Kenya—that Sammy Wanjiru is simply tougher than the rest.

“What I think about in my mind is never give up," he said. "I tried to push my body because I know today I was not in good shape but I push my body until the last kick.”

Savoring the memory, Sammy concluded, “In my life I will not forget this day 10-10-10. It was a real tough day, it was like when I was running to win in Bejing.”

Regrettably, Chicago was Wanjiru’s last race, and last victory. With three wins in four attempts following his Beijing triumph, he secured consecutive World Marathon Majors titles in 2009 and 2010.

Receiving his award hours after Haile Gebrselassie’s aborted retirement, the soft spoken Wanjuri gave a heartfelt appreciation of the marathon and of Gebrselassie whom he called not only his hero, but a hero for all of Africa. Sammy aspired to be like Haile, not only in competition but in media relations as an ambassador for the sport. He rose to the occasion, speaking with poised confidence and insight to a room filled with media-savvy marathon kingpins, and did so in English, his fifth language after three Kenyan dialects and Japanese.

On a personal level Sammy had that certain magic that drew people in. Shy but confident, at times seeming so young but at others wise and mature, Sammy ran the gamut, but always with an easy half smile, sometimes spreading to a full grin. Wanjiru was pleasant company with a strong intellect.

Among athletes, he already had the pull of a Haile or Paul Tergat even before he took gold in Bejing. Athletes like Patrick Makau and Issac Macharia relished the opportunity to train with him.

Sammy was a thoroughly engaging human being, and at 24 years old he proved far too human. Unfortunately for marathoners, who surface twice a year for competitions, there is much life lived between those peaks.

After climbing fearlessly to the pinnacle of success, Sammy had difficulty on the descent between the peaks and the past five months preceding his death had been arduous with domestic turmoil, legal troubles, a car wreck and knee injury, along with the heavy burden of Kenyan media expectations countered with speculations on his partying lifestyle and alcohol consumption.

We will never know how the money, success, expectations, and family demands shaped him, not to mention the car-jackings, home invasions, and injuries, or what may have been done to save Sammy from his fate. All we gain is an appreciation that our sports heroes and champions are a two-way street and sometimes they need more from us than adulation.

For me the lasting memory of Sammy will be his smile, engaging eye contact and the clap – clap of his feet. Wanjiru preferred hard sole racing flats, that clapped with each foot strike. Often this was lost among crowd noise and other runners, but as the race played out and Sammy closed in on victory, all that remained was that clap-clap.

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Sean Hartnett, a geographer at Wisconsin-Eau Claire, has covered numerous events on track, road and over the country for T&FN. His greatest love in the sport is distance running and the marathon in particular. He has advised World Record setters Paul Tergat and Haile Gebrselassie (who first dubbed Sean "Professor Marathon") on training and racing tactics. He knew Sammy Wanjiru well.

 

Professor Sean Hartnett
Geographer University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire
Founding Director – Confluence Center for Chippewa River Studies
https://www.uwec.edu/hartnesg/