Rice Wanjiru Well.L.Indd
Samuel Wanjiru, who won the 2008 Olympic marathon, was not the first famous Kenyan athlete to drink and run. TNY—2012_05_21—PAGE 48—133SC.—livE ArT r22198 LETTER fROM KENYA fiNisH LiNE A Kenyan running champion’s tragic weakness. BY XAN RicE t 7:30 A.M. on the final day of the 2:06:32, nearly three minutes faster than ing to pull away from Wanjiru, Kebede 2008 Summer Olympics, in Bei- the Olympic record set in Los Angeles, was spent. With five hundred and fifty jing,A the temperature was 70 degrees in 1984, by Portugal’s Carlos Lopes, who yards to go, Wanjiru launched a devas- Fahrenheit and climbing fast. The hu- was then thirty-seven years old. Wanjiru tating sprint on a small rise. Federico midity was seventy-two per cent. For the was the youngest marathon gold medal- Rosa, a burly Italian who was Wanjiru’s ninety-five athletes lined up in Tianan- ist in seventy-six years. manager, told me, “Sammy won with his men Square for the men’s marathon, the The first half of his race had been mind and his balls.” city’s notorious pollution posed an added significantly faster than the second half, In defeating Kebede, Wanjiru re- challenge. Haile Gebrselassie, the Ethi- and this upended the prevailing view that tained the title in the World Marathon opian who held the world record of a marathoner should run at an even pace Majors, a two-year series that ranks per- 2:04:26, had skipped the event, citing the for most of the route, the second half of formances in the top five city races.
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