Samuel Wanjiru, who won the 2008 Olympic , was not the first famous Kenyan athlete to drink and run.

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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 , 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. , 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. With threat to his health. Few experts believed the race slightly swifter than the first— his prize money, appearance fees, and a that the winner would finish within six the “negative split.” On the Runner’s Nike sponsorship deal, he was earning minutes of Gebrselassie’s mark; besides World Web site, Amby Burfoot, the more than a million dollars a year. the weather, the absence of pacesetters, 1968 winner, de- Though he was just twenty-three, his who are not permitted in Olympic mar- scribed Wanjiru’s performance as “the place among the finest marathoners in athons, would be a drag on the tempo. craziest running I’ve ever seen.” He also history was assured. He had run only From the start, a twenty-one-year-old called it the greatest marathon ever. seven , all of them major com- Kenyan named , run- Two years later, Wanjiru ran an even petitions, and won five, always with fast ning only his third 26.2-miler, sprinted more astounding race. When he lined up times. He never ran another one. Seven to the front, as if it were a fifteen- at the Marathon, in October, months after his Chicago victory, Wan- hundred-metre race. Only five feet four, 2010, he was only “seventy per cent” fit, jiru fell from the balcony of his home in Wanjiru ran with his head tilted to the he later admitted, and had been written Kenya, and died at the hospital shortly side and his back upright. His hands off by the press. “Everyone had doubts afterward. The police said that it was hung low, palms open, paddling the air about Sammy,” Sean Hartnett, a corre- suicide. as he moved. Kenyan athletes are re- spondent for Track & Field News, told nowned for their long, birdlike legs and me. “Reports from Kenya said he was liv- ike most rural Kenyans, Wanjiru graceful strides, but he had powerful ing off his fame, not his fitness, with sto- grew up poor. His parents separated quadriceps that drove his feet at a furious ries of drinking and fights.” Once again, whenL he was four, leaving his mother, pace. The first five kilometres took him Wanjiru started fast, and for a while even Hannah, to raise him and his younger only 14:52—a minute faster than the moved ahead of the pacesetters, in an at- brother, Simon. They lived with Han- winning time in the women’s five- tempt to hurry them up. At twenty-three nah’s parents in Ol Kalou, a small town thousand-metre race, two days earlier. miles, he and the Ethiopian Tsegaye in the highlands of central Kenya. Han- The next five-kilometre split was nine- Kebede were alone at the front, engaged nah, who is fifty, told me, “I was cultivat- teen seconds quicker. By then, the field in the sort of physical and mental duel ing on my father’s shamba”—Swahili for had been blown apart, with just eight rarely seen in long-distance running. farm—“and doing manual work. It was athletes in the lead group. That fell to Kebede surged, opening a small gap, but just me supporting my family. There was five at the halfway mark, which they Wanjiru reeled him in, briefly taking the no money.” reached in 1:02:34—five seconds off the lead before Kebede surged once more. When Wanjiru was old enough to world-record pace. Wanjiru was still Again and again, Wanjiru closed in, as if ride a bicycle, he began working as a there. attached to his rival by elastic, but with bread delivery boy to help his mother In bright sunshine, the temperature the morning sun behind them Kebede financially. Despite often being excluded rose to 84 degrees. Though the pace could react to the sight of his competi- from class, because of unpaid fees, he dropped slightly, Wanjiru kept surging, tor’s shadow, prompting Wanjiru to try finished primary school. Secondary edu- and one by one his competitors dropped to hide by veering wide or sticking di- cation, however, was too expensive. He

ECCH iO away. With just over three miles to go, he rectly behind him. probably would have become a mason or

DO v kicked for home. On reaching the Olym- “This is like the Frazier-Ali,” a televi- a farm laborer, he later said, if not for pic stadium, he sped up once more before sion announcer said. athletics. riCCA r breaking the tape. His winning time was Having exerted so much energy try- He first showed running talent at the

THE NEW YORKER, M AY 21, 2012 49

TNY—2012_05_21—PAGE 49—133SC. age of ten, at school track meets, and soon konjou—endurance and willpower— August, 2005, he ran 26:41 for the ten scored victories in provincial cross-coun- quickly yielded success. Five years after thousand metres in , smashing try races. When his education was put on Kobayashi sent the eighteen-year-old the world junior record; he was soon hold, he started running full time, joining Doug las Wakiihuri to , Wakiihuri signed by Rosa, the Italian manager, who a training camp in nearby Nyahururu, won silver in the marathon at the 1988 represented many Kenyan athletes. Two which, at nearly eight thousand feet, is Olympics, in Seoul—the first time that a weeks later, Wanjiru broke the half-mar- the country’s highest town, and has served Kenyan marathoner had won an Olympic athon world record. His performances, as a base for top athletes ever since Kenya medal. Another Kobayashi recruit, Erick his jovial demeanor, and his command of emerged as a distance-running super- Wainaina, took bronze in Atlanta, in Japanese made him a star in Japan. power, more than forty years ago. 1996, and silver in Sydney, four years later. In the evenings, Wanjiru started hav- Isaac Macharia, today a world-class Kobayashi told me that, in 2001, after ing a few beers. Social drinking is routine marathoner, lived at the camp as a observing a barefoot Wanjiru compete among élite athletes in Japan, and Brett twenty-year-old in 2000, when Wanjiru and “liking his running style,” he got him Larner, a Tokyo-based Canadian who arrived there. Conditions were crude, a scholarship at Ikuei Gakuen publishes the Japan Running News blog, Macharia told me. Few of the runners High School, on Japan’s northeast coast. told me, “While Wanjiru was in Japan, had proper shoes or a training kit; a tank Wanjiru, then fifteen, did not know nobody had a sense that he was drinking top was a prized item. They slept two to where Japan was. He had never travelled too much.” a bed. After the second tough training by plane. English was his third language, That year, during a brief trip home to session of the day, the young men went after Kikuyu and Swahili, and he spoke it Kenya, Wanjiru married Terezah Njeri, off and collected wild vegetables to eat poorly. Still, his mother, with whom he a local girl whom he had dated in high with ugali, a maize-flour porridge that is was very close, considered training in school. Wanjiru was eighteen, his bride Kenya’s staple. The leftovers were the Japan a huge opportunity, and so he seventeen. Soon afterward, he returned next day’s breakfast. Wanjiru, then thir- flew to Tokyo in 2002, and took the bul- to Japan, alone, for training. teen, was young to be in a camp, but he let train to Sendai. He was one of two In 2007, Wanjiru lowered his half- was emotionally mature. “Most of us Kenyans at the school. He didn’t go home marathon world record twice, the second from humble backgrounds—by the time for the holidays for nearly a year. The time to 58:33. He told Rosa that he be- you are ten or eleven you are grown up,” winter was severe, as was the discipline. “I lieved he could win the Olympic mara- Macharia said. “You have to help out could not get used to the food,” Wanjiru thon in . To some, this seemed your family from so young.” told the Times, in 2009. “And my family premature: a runner traditionally According to Macharia, Wanjiru was was in Kenya, and I sometimes got the strengthened his body for years before “talkative and full of laughter” at the homesickness. It was a very hard life.” tackling the marathon. This was the camp. He trained hard and distinguished Still, he fought to adapt, quickly route taken by the Kenyan runner Paul himself with aggressive “front run- learning to speak good Japanese. On his Tergat, who, in 2003, became the first ning”—getting into the lead early. “He first day at school, he had told his coach man to run a sub-2:05 marathon, and by was very driven,” Macharia said. “First, that he would win an Olympic medal; Gebrselassie, the Ethiopian, who beat he had a passion for running. And the though his initial performances did not Tergat’s mark four years later. Both were second issue was poverty, wanting to get thirty-four at the time of their victories. away from it.” Wanjiru, still only twenty, persuaded Wanjiru’s performances in local races Rosa to enter him in the 2007 New York attracted the attention of Shunichi Ko- Marathon, but his bosses at ob- bayashi, a dapper, sixty-nine-year-old jected, citing contractual obligations. In- Japanese running scout who, more than stead, Wanjiru made his marathon début two decades earlier, had moved to Kenya in , Japan, that December. to learn Swahili. An athlete in his youth, Macharia, his friend from Nyahururu, Kobayashi had become interested in the served as his pacesetter for the first nine- Kenyan running scene, admiring the nat- teen miles. Macharia spent the whole ural gifts of many of its practitioners: thin time keeping Wanjiru on a leash. Most calves, narrow hips, and strong ankles match his confidence, he never balked at marathoners need to carefully manage coupled with powerful leg muscles con- training runs of up to eighteen miles. He their “fuel”—the carbohydrates stored in sisting mainly of slow-twitch fibres, helped lead the school team to two na- muscles as glycogen—but Wanjiru ap- which resist fatigue. (Most people have a tional titles and, upon graduating, in parently had fuel to spare. He won in fifty-fifty mixture of slow- and fast- 2004, was signed by the Toyota Kyushu 2:06:39, a course record. twitch fibres; sprinters generally have squad. Now focussed on Beijing, he trained more of the latter.) In five years, Wanjiru went from not harder than ever, in Japan and back in In 1983, Kobayashi had started send- owning a pair of shoes to earning a big Kenya, where he stayed with Macharia ing Kenyan runners to Japan, which has salary. (A hundred thousand dollars a in and joined a running group in the world’s richest corporate running year, before performance bonuses, is the Ngong Hills, the scenic suburb pop- league. The fusion of Kenyan talent with standard for top foreign athletes in ularized in the film “Out of Africa.” the rigorous Japanese focus on gaman and Japan.) He quickly proved his worth. In Studies have indicated that East Africans

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TNY—2012_05_21—PAGE 50—133SC.—livE ArT r22210G do not possess a “running gene” that gives them a singular edge; all élite long- distance athletes have favorable biome- chanics and a strong capacity to utilize oxygen. Local coaches believe, however, that the high-altitude training grounds and competition from training partners help propel Kenyans to victory. “Our workouts were so tough,” Macharia told me. “After training, Sammy would just come home and sleep. Occasionally, we would go out to get something to eat, but we were always home by eight.” At the Mara- thon, in April, 2008, Wanjiru ran 2:05:34, finishing second to his country- man . Wanjiru’s performance earned him a spot on the team for Bei- jing. Four months later, his record- breaking victory there confirmed that he represented a new class of marathoner. As Hartnett, the sportswriter, later ob- served, Wanjiru was “just fundamentally stronger than this arduous race.”

hen Wanjiru returned to Kenya after his Olympic triumph, the convoyW welcoming him back to Nyahur- uru was three miles long. The town’s fa- vorite son was home to stay: Wanjiru had •• quit the Toyota team, saying that he wanted more freedom and more time stairs ten times,” Gatheru said. “For the “A true friend who is more than a with his family. That meant giving up hill, it was twelve.” brother, that was Sammy,” Gatheru said. world-class facilities, coaching, and tech- Even on twenty-four-mile training “When we visited my mother, I did not nical support, but the lack of synthetic runs, he and Wanjiru had no sports have a cent. He would buy groceries for tracks, heart-rate monitors, dieticians, drinks; they drank water instead. Their her worth fifteen thousand shillings”—a and Gatorade hadn’t kept other Kenyans one luxury was music. On road runs, hundred and eighty dollars—“and then from winning. Wanjiru sent his driver ahead in his Toy- give her five thousand shillings in cash.” Early one morning in July, 2011, two ota Land Cruiser—one of several In a small town in Kenya, a rich man months after Wanjiru’s death, I took a S.U.V.s that he owned—with the stereo is expected to help not only his family taxi to Nyahururu from my home, in blasting gospel or reggae. and friends but also anyone short of cash Nairobi. As we gained elevation, savanna Away from training, however, life was for rent, food, or hospital bills. In the gave way to lush farmland, conifer plan- far more complicated than in Japan. morning, a line of needy people often tations, and indigenous forest. Cows Wanjiru, who could now command stood outside Wanjiru’s house. He was grazed in fields and farmers rode through hundreds of thousands of dollars just to asked by politicians to appear at func- mist in donkey carts. A few miles after line up in a major marathon, was gener- tions, by businessmen to inaugurate crossing the equator from the south, we ous with his money, supporting an or- shops, by churches to lead fund-raising reached Nyahururu, where several men phanage and other charities, helping rel- drives. Such pressures drove many Ke- were jogging on the main road. atives, and picking up tabs at bars and nyan runners to sequester themselves in Daniel Gatheru, Wanjiru’s childhood restaurants. He gave money to Njeri to training camps or to move to big cities, friend and training partner, had been start two businesses, a beauty salon and a like Nairobi, where they could achieve with him on the day of his death. He pharmacy, both of which failed. He also some anonymity. proudly pointed out the places where he assisted other athletes with training kits, Wanjiru, having spent six years and Wanjiru used to train: a dilapidated race-entry fees, transportation, and food. abroad, was not about to leave again. But dirt-and-stone track; a winding flight of Gatheru—whose 2:12:00 best for the Gatheru said that his friend “was not a hundred and nineteen irregular steps, marathon would have stood out in a happy in Nyahururu.” Wanjiru’s personal to the left of a waterfall; and, on the other country other than Kenya—might never life was particularly tangled. One after- side, a steep trail up what was called have competed abroad if Wanjiru had noon in Nyahururu, I met with Terezah Agony Hill. “Sammy and I would do the not persuaded Rosa to give him a chance. Njeri, Wanjiru’s wife, who was now

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TNY—2012_05_21—PAGE 51—133SC. twenty-three. The Wanjirus’ two-story that she was the youngest of eight chil- money the mother-in-law has a kind of house, which they built in 2007, was dren in a poor family. She had immedi- control of the marriage,” Njeri said. “She modest by American standards, but stood ately fallen for Wanjiru: “He was caring, wants to know everything about his out there. A security wall was topped by someone who could be trusted. He was money.” The tension between them was an electric fence and was painted on the not yet a hero.” evident to Wanjiru the moment he re- inside with wildlife scenes. Njeri and I When Wanjiru returned to Japan turned: they had clashed over their roles sat down on leather sofas in the living after their wedding, Njeri moved to a in his homecoming celebrations. room, as their four-year-old daughter, one-bedroom rental house in Nyahu- Though Wanjiru bought his mother Anne, put on a DVD. Pictures of Wan- ruru with his mother, Hannah, and his her own house, it was only a hundred and jiru running the Beijing marathon ap- brother, Simon. At first, Njeri and Han- fifty yards from his. And domestic mat- peared on a flat-screen television. “Anne nah got along, but as Wanjiru’s wealth ters became even trickier in 2009, when was very close to her dad,” Njeri said. grew their relationship soured. “Accord- Wanjiru, against Njeri’s wishes, took a Njeri, who is small and pretty, said ing to African culture, when you have second wife, which is culturally accept-

sHOWcAsE BY RicHARD AVEDON “Allen Ginsberg’s Family,” made on May 3, 1970, at the Alexander Hamilton Hotel, in Paterson, New Jersey, is one of four enormous murals that Richard Avedon produced between 1969 and 1971. The works are united in an installation at the Gagosian gallery designed by David Adjaye, which reserves space for a wealth of related material. Prints from Avedon’s 1963 session with Ginsberg—in which the poet and his lover, Peter Orlovsky, are seen nude, hugging and kissing—portray the antic other side of the genial family man, posed here with his aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews. The occasion was a father-and-son reading to celebrate Louis Ginsberg’s new book of poems. Louis, book in hand, appears twice: once, at the far right, next to Allen’s stepmother, Edith, and, again, on the left, with his other son, Eugene, who wears a bow tie. Digging around the roots of the sexual revolution, Avedon found a family sharing poetry and cake beside the American flag.—Vince Aletti

52 THE NEW YORKER, M AY 21, 2012

TNY—2012_05_21—PAGE 52—133SC.—live art—r22181—extremely critical photograph to be watched throughout the entire press run— able in Kenya, if increasingly uncommon. with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “He used hopping twice a week. “We would go out “Sammy had a lot of stress with his to say, ‘I eat how I want, I train how I from 4 or 5 P.M. to 10 P.M.,” he said. “We family,” Gatheru said. “It’s the rea- want, and I still win,’ ” Ndegwa said. would eat and other friends would come. son that he started drinking a lot of One of Wanjiru’s drinking buddies If Sammy was running the next day, we beer.” This habit started in 2009, Wan- was a slightly built twenty-two-year-old would have less beer and more Red Bull jiru’s friends say. His lawyer, Wahome named Norman Mathathi, whom I met and Smirnoff.” In a night, they “could do Ndegwa, recalls seeing him in a bar at one afternoon in Nyahururu. He is also a a crate together”—twenty-five beers. 3 A.M. that September, shortly before runner, though not an especially com- Alcohol abuse is widespread in rural Wanjiru left for a half-marathon in mitted one. He told me that Wanjiru, Kenya, where jobs are scarce and home : “I said, ‘You are running on after returning from Japan, did not “rec- brew is cheap. Yet the idea that the Sunday!’ He replied, ‘Watch me on ognize who he had become. He thought world’s best marathoner—whose com- Sunday!’ ” Wanjiru ran well enough, he was still a normal person, not a hero petitors were exploiting the latest in sports and on his return presented Ndegwa or a role model.” They often went bar- science and counting every calorie—could ON i NDAT EDON F Ou Av CHA rD ri © THE

sHOWcAsE BY RicHARD AVEDON “Allen Ginsberg’s Family,” made on May 3, 1970, at the Alexander Hamilton Hotel, in Paterson, New Jersey, is one of four enormous murals that Richard Avedon produced between 1969 and 1971. The works are united in an installation at the Gagosian gallery designed by David Adjaye, which reserves space for a wealth of related material. Prints from Avedon’s 1963 session with Ginsberg—in which the poet and his lover, Peter Orlovsky, are seen nude, hugging and kissing—portray the antic other side of the genial family man, posed here with his aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews. The occasion was a father-and-son reading to celebrate Louis Ginsberg’s new book of poems. Louis, book in hand, appears twice: once, at the far right, next to Allen’s stepmother, Edith, and, again, on the left, with his other son, Eugene, who wears a bow tie. Digging around the roots of the sexual revolution, Avedon found a family sharing poetry and cake beside the American flag.—Vince Aletti

TNY—2012_05_21—PAGE 53—133SC.—live art—r22181—extremely critical photograph to be watched throughout the entire press run— be drinking to this degree would strike cise science at the University of Cape Gatheru said that he frequently re- most top coaches as crazy. But, at first, Town and the author of “The Lore of minded Wanjiru of countrymen whose Wanjiru got away with it. It helped that Running,” the serious runner’s bible, said running careers had been destroyed by he never skipped training, even when that long training sessions help a runner drink. Macharia, who called himself “an hungover. And he didn’t have a coach in burn off toxins, but drinking more than elder brother” to Wanjiru, knew how town to chastise him. Francis Kamau, two beers a day usually harms perfor- much pressure there was on his friend to who helped Wanjiru train but had no su- mance. “To run 2:06, everything has to be perform, and how fickle the adulation pervisory role, told me, “He would drink perfect,” he told me. “So you have to as- could be. Whenever Wanjiru returned at night and still run the time he wanted sume that Wanjiru showed no toxic home from a marathon victory, the air- the next day. God had built the boy in a effects of alcohol. He must have been port arrivals lounge in Nairobi was different way.” metabolizing in a way we don’t under- packed with supporters. But after an in- Indeed, Wanjiru’s performances dur- stand.” Though Noakes doubted Rono’s jury forced him to drop out of the Lon- ing his first year of public drinking were argument that drinking taught him disci- don Marathon, in April, 2010, Macha- astonishing. In April, 2009, he won the pline, he agreed that “the brain is the ul- ria was the only person to welcome in 2:05:10, a course re- timate determinant of performance.” No- Wanjiru, who felt stung. cord. That October, he claimed the Chi- akes went on, “At the time, Rono thought “He was reserved and did not want to cago Marathon title, running the fastest that the alcohol had no effect on his run- disclose things to people,” Macharia said. time ever on American soil; he had ning. He perceived himself to be the best “But, inside him, he was going down.” launched a five-hundred-and-fifty-yard athlete in the world, and ran accordingly. Wanjiru’s management team knew sprint, mid-race, after falling back to en- It’s a mental attribute. And that belief in that he was drinking. One morning last courage his friend Macharia. As in Bei- themselves is part of the reason why the June, I flew to Eldoret, a high-altitude jing, he had turned the negative-split the- Kenyans are dominant.” Still, belief takes town in the Rift Valley where many élite ory on its head, forcing his more traditional you only so far. Rono lapsed into alcohol- athletes train, to meet Claudio Berardelli, adversaries out of their comfort zones. ism and depression for two decades, and an Italian sports scientist who coaches “For most runners, starting so fast and even became homeless for more than a many Kenyan runners represented by surging hard so often would have been year before turning his life around. He Rosa. As we watched some of his athletes the kiss of death, but in terms of fatigue now coaches athletics in Albuquerque. sprint around a dirt track, generating puffs Sammy had a unique ability to recover,” At least three top Kenyan runners of red dust, Berardelli told me that Wan- Hartnett said. “He thought he had nine with alcohol problems have died in the jiru underwent routine medical tests in lives in every race.” past seventeen years. Benson Masya, who Italy after the . won the three times, Doctors checked his liver, and the results anjiru was not the first famous died in 2003, at thirty-three. Richard were clean. “Sammy was still at a level Kenyan athlete to drink and run. Chelimo, an Olympic silver medalist in where nothing was spoiled,” Berardelli TheW best-known example is Henry the ten thousand metres, died in 2001, at said. Nevertheless, he asked Rosa to tell Rono, a brilliant track athlete whose ca- the age of twenty-nine; Paul Kipkoech, a Wanjiru that there was alcohol-related reer was blighted by Kenya’s boycott of world champion in the ten thousand me- liver damage—to scare him into changing the 1976 and 1980 . tres, was thirty-two when he died, in his life style. Rosa did so, and then asked After enrolling at Washington State 1995. In Kenyan running circles, it is well Wanjiru to train under Berardelli for that University, in 1976, and struggling to known that two other winners of major fall’s marathon season. For the first time, settle in, Rono began drinking pitchers marathons have drinking problems. Berardelli observed Wanjiru’s biome- of beer every night until two, then rising Unlike in other top running countries, chanics up close. “He was a short guy with early for a morning run. On April 8, such as , Kenyan athletes are usu- big quad muscles to produce power,” he 1978, as he recalls in his recent memoir, ally not closely monitored by the country’s said. “He had a lot of elastic energy in his “Olympic Dream,” he “spent most of athletics federation. Colm O’Connell, an feet, which really helps toward the end of that morning trying to shake a hang- Irishman who has coached dozens of Ke- a marathon, and excellent balance.” over,” then smashed the five-thousand- nyan athletes, said that the combination Though Berardelli did not give Wan- metre world record, at a race in Berkeley, of poor education, overnight riches, and jiru a VO2 Max test—which gauges a California. In the next eighty days, Rono demands from families and neighbors runner’s ability to transport and use oxy- broke three other world records, an as- makes top Kenyan runners particularly gen—he assured me that Wanjiru had tonishing feat. In his memoir, Rono vulnerable to alcohol abuse. “Especially rare aerobic power, because he was so fast writes that his drinking did not hamper the men,” he told me. “Women are better in races of five and ten thousand metres, his running performance, and may even at sharing emotions and feelings. Men which are short enough for runners to op- have strengthened him mentally: “Learn- have the macho image—they don’t want erate at close to their maximum capacity ing to run with a temple-thumping to show weakness.” for the entire distance. “Sammy was at the hangover taught me something about Wanjiru’s mother and his two wives front of this new generation of Kenyan discipline, and how to put mind over tried to talk to him about his excessive runners who were training for marathons matter, and focus beyond my physical drinking, they told me, but he denied but who could still run the ten thousand pain, no matter how excruciating.” that he had a problem. Other runners ad- metres in twenty-seven minutes on any Timothy Noakes, a professor of exer- vised him to get help, as did close friends. day,” Berardelli said. “It used to be that

54 THE NEW YORKER, M AY 21, 2012

TNY—2012_05_21—PAGE 54—133SC. ary. He also contemplated returning to Japan. In April, Gatheru phoned Be- MEDiciNE cABiNET rardelli, the coach in Eldoret, and said, “If we don’t do anything, this guy is lost.” It seemed to take half the day to reach the bathroom, dragging this Berardelli, with Rosa, drove to Nya- skull like unto a kite behind me. Then, like a flaccid balloon. Then the hururu. They met Wanjiru and Njeri at pink misshapen head almost all fontanelle of children born without a their home, and then had lunch with brain. And I was about a quarter to dead. That little twinge I’d started Wanjiru alone. They presented him with out with? Off the smiley/frowny pain chart, children, my garden of a proposal: until May 26th, the day of the scars. Now my whole body felt as if someone had been going at it with court date for gun possession, Wanjiru a baseball bat as I struggled to awaken this morning long ago. From could stay with Berardelli in Eldoret. Af- having mastered and, I have this great fear, memorized the new terward, Wanjiru could fly to the U.S. manual of gender correct English usage and just good old plain and train for six weeks in America. His personal experience I can tell you the avoidance of mirrors represents friend Gatheru could accompany him. one of humankind’s major ordeals among the stars, and I approached Wanjiru agreed, and on Monday, May this medicine cabinet determined that there should be no eye contact, 9th, he and Gatheru arrived in Eldoret. no full frontal glimpse of myself whatsoever. I knew that I looked like For a week, they trained in the morning, death getting ready to eat a cracker! Were you aware, incidentally, that relaxed in the afternoon, and were home heroin was invented by Bayer, the familiar aspirin company (thanks, for dinner and an early night. That Satur- Friedrich)? Or that it remained, in liquid form, an effective over-the- day, Gatheru said to Berardelli, “I think counter cough suppressant until its disappearance from the shelves of Sammy is finding himself again. He American pharmacies in 1910? One day I am going to start to cry and wants to run in Chicago or New York.” never stop until I die. So what. An hour later I could still be found Shortly after dawn the next morning, there gnawing my way through the first gray pill, which was about the Wanjiru and Gatheru left Berardelli’s size of a pie and must have weighed ten pounds. house and jogged up a bumpy dirt road before heading into a forest for an eight- —Franz Wright mile run. They returned in good spirits. Wanjiru gave the house cleaner the equivalent of several days’ wages, telling you either lacked speed or you lacked en- raged, and fetched an AK-47. He later him to enjoy his Sunday. durance. These guys lack neither.” told police that it belonged to a worker Berardelli had given Wanjiru permis- When Wanjiru came to train with who guarded cattle on a farm he’d sion to go to Nyahururu the next morn- Berardelli in July, he was struggling. He bought. After spending the night in jail, ing, to see his lawyer. Wanjiru had prom- was about nine pounds heavier than his Wanjiru was charged with threatening to ised to return immediately for another usual racing weight of a hundred and kill his wife and his watchman, with as- week’s training before heading to Amer- twelve, yet he tried to run as if in peak saulting the watchman, and with pos- ica. He left Eldoret with Gatheru, and condition. “The group would start at a sessing an illegal weapon. A few weeks just before noon they reached Nakuru, a comfortable pace,” Berardelli said. “But later, he rolled a friend’s Land Cruiser, Rift Valley town famous for its national just after one mile Sammy would go narrowly escaping serious injury. park, and stopped at a bar. ‘boom,’ and be two hundred and fifty Njeri pressed charges over the gun in- yards away at the front. Gatheru told me, cident and asked for a divorce, but several “ e just had Red Bull here,” Gath- ‘That’s how he trains, don’t worry.’ ” weeks later she and Wanjiru tried to eru told me one day in early Au- Wanjiru’s training partners quickly make a fresh start by moving to the gust,W when we stopped outside the bar, caught up and passed him. Ngong Hills, where Wanjiru had bought which is called the Donnies. He was re- Wanjiru had registered for the Chi- a house. Macharia enlisted some elders tracing the journey that he had made cago Marathon, but in the weeks before to counsel the couple, and Catherine with Wanjiru on the day that his friend the race his form was so poor that Be- Ndereba, who won the silver in the Bei- died. rardelli considered withdrawing him. jing women’s marathon, also offered ad- After the drink, they had lunch at Nobody was more surprised than the vice. It appeared to work. Njeri dropped Hudson’s Bar and Restaurant, which is coach by Wanjiru’s dramatic win. Be- her police complaint against Wanjiru, perched on a hillside and run by a British rardelli said, “Sammy showed that he was though the weapons charge, which nor- couple. Posted on the wall behind the bar not just an athlete with an incredible mally results in jail time, remained. was a menu; on a previous visit, Wanjiru physiology. He was, first of all, a fighter.” Wanjiru did not stay settled for long. had signed it with his name, in Japanese He went back to Nyahururu, and his and in English, adding the inscription n December 29, 2010, less than drinking intensified. Friends and family “THE MARATHON MAN LOVES IT AT three months after the Chicago did not see him for days at a time. He HUDSON’S.” Wanjiru had a few glasses of MarathonO victory, Wanjiru arrived, told Gatheru that he had considered tak- wine with his meal. He and Gatheru drunk, at his home in Nyahururu. After ing Qatari nationality and running for went on to two more bars; at the second, an argument with Njeri, he became en- the Gulf state in exchange for a big sal- Wanjiru ordered beers for everyone

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TNY—2012_05_21—PAGE 55—133SC. his wife to bring him the keys. She re- fused. Two or three minutes later, I heard a man scream. I went back to the master bedroom and onto the balcony. I saw the watchman, and asked what was wrong. He said, ‘Look down.’ And I could see Sammy, lying on his back.” Alerted by the commotion, neighbors rushed to the house. The police also ar- rived. Wanjiru, bleeding from the nose and mouth but still breathing, was taken to the hospital in a police car. He died soon afterward. Gatheru, who rushed to the hospital, called Berardelli and cried, “Sammy is gone!”

hat night, the police classified Wan- jiru’s death a suicide. Though offi- Tcials later acknowledged that the death could have been accidental, the media fo- cussed on the more sensational possibil- ity. Then, two days after her son died, Hannah Wanjiru announced at a press conference that she believed he had been murdered, implying that Njeri was re- sponsible. (Njeri later issued a forceful denial.) Hannah claimed to have found blood in Wanjiru’s bedroom, though no- body else reported seeing any. She ap- “The majestic way they climb higher and higher plied for a court order to delay the burial, until they seem to kiss the sky reminds me of the huge pile of work arguing that police needed time to inves- I have waiting for me when I get back.” tigate. The order was granted. The family drama widened when Wanjiru’s second wife, who had had a •• baby with him nine months earlier, ap- peared in the press, taking Hannah’s side. inside and took one for the road. On known him for a few months. They Then another woman came forward, reaching Nyahururu, he and Gatheru moved to Club Jimrock, where he drank saying that she was carrying Wanjiru’s stopped at Club Jimrock before moving two more beers, and then drove to his child and would seek DNA proof. to the Waterfalls Resort restaurant for house. Wanjiru asked his watchman There was plenty to fight over in dinner with Wanjiru’s bank manager. whether his wife was home. She was Wanjiru’s estate; he owned thirty prop- Wanjiru drank three more beers. At not—though Wanjiru knew that she was erties around town and several vehicles. around nine, Gatheru went home. Wan- in town—and he parked the car and Ndegwa, Wanjiru’s lawyer, told me that jiru, promising to go home soon, had went inside with Nduta. the estate was worth at least two and a suggested that they meet in the morning Wanjiru was tired and intoxicated, and half million dollars, a fortune in a coun- for training. Gatheru, who was used to quickly fell asleep, Nduta said. Shortly af- try where nearly half the population lives seeing his friend more inebriated and terward, she heard footsteps. It was Njeri. in poverty. Normally, under Kenyan law, downbeat, said, “I was not worried, be- Furious, she demanded to know who Njeri would be the main beneficiary, al- cause it was still early, and Sammy had Nduta was. Wanjiru, who had woken up, though other dependents—including not drunk too much. I did not know that said nothing. Njeri locked a gate that sep- Hannah and Wanjiru’s second wife, as he would take more beer.” arated the bedrooms from the rest of the well any children by other women— After a dispute over a bar bill, Wan- house—a typical security feature in would also be entitled to a share. But if jiru forced his car through a gate outside wealthier Kenyan homes. Wanjiru and Njeri was found guilty of murder she the restaurant, damaging the bumper, Nduta were trapped. (Njeri and the would get nothing. and drove across town to the Kawa Falls watchman gave me similar accounts.) Three doctors conducted the post- Hotel. There he met Jane Nduta, a “Sammy told me to go to the other mortem, on May 27th. Moses Njue, the twenty-one-year-old waitress nearing bedroom and wait until he got the keys,” chief government pathologist, reported the end of her shift. Wanjiru was “quite Nduta said. “I heard him opening the that the cause of death was a “blunt injury” drunk,” she told me, adding that she had door to the balcony, and then shouting at to the back of the head. This seemed con-

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TNY—2012_05_21—PAGE 56—133SC.—livE ArT—A 16612 sistent with the police’s theory that Wan- It was drizzling outside. We climbed two tiles on a section of roof jutting out jiru had fallen backward from the balcony, into a green Land Cruiser and drove to beneath the balcony had been dis - striking his head on the ground. Njue said the farm where Wanjiru was buried. placed—in an accidental fall, they could that he wanted to assess the balcony’s Hannah was already there, along with have been dislodged. height before finalizing the report. He two brothers and her parents. A lamb “Nobody killed Sammy,” Gatheru said. was also awaiting toxicology results. had been slaughtered and a fire prepared. The police in Nyahururu would not Wanjiru’s balcony is ten feet off the Njeri made tea in a large metal milk pail, comment on the record, saying that the ground, though the guardrail on top is dipping in mugs to serve it. case was still open. However, a senior another four feet. After taking these Hannah stood alone near the grave, officer said that the police had erred with measurements, Njue made a startling an- looking uncomfortable, but next to her the suicide announcement, and he dis- nouncement. Wanjiru, he claimed to re- the elderly prophetess was smiling. She missed the pathologist’s insinuations of porters, “landed on his legs and sup- said of Hannah, “I convinced her that foul play: “This is the fall of somebody ported himself with his hands. Where God wanted her to reconcile with her who is annoyed, who is drunk. People are did the injury on the back”—of the daughter-in-law.” coming to find him red-handed with a head—“come from? We could turn into It grew dark and we moved inside a woman. He slips, hits the roof, falls fools if we don’t ask ourselves this ques- small building. The lamb, tender and de- down. If you land with your head . . . ” tion.” A toxicology report has still not licious, was served in strips with slices of Before I left Hannah’s house, she ex- been released, and Njue declined an in- white sandwich bread. We ate by the pressed regret that the melodrama after terview request. light of a mobile phone. The pastor from Wanjiru’s death had tarnished his name. Hannah continued to oppose a burial, the local church said a prayer, and every- Her last words to me were: “Since Kenya but Wanjiru’s other relatives wanted the one stood and bowed their heads, Han- got independence, nobody had won the funeral to proceed. On June 4th, Wanjiru’s nah next to Njeri. Olympic marathon. My son needs to be grandfather and two uncles met with remembered as a hero.” Njeri, along with other mourners, at a he harmony in the Wanjiru family Berardelli, for his part, likened Wan- small farm in Nyahururu to choose a spot was superficial. The next day, when jiru’s story to that of Steve Prefontaine, for the grave. News footage shows Han- TI spoke with Hannah, she returned to the the brilliant American track runner who nah storming into the farm compound murder theory. She was sitting on the died in 1975, at the age of twenty-four, and taking a machete from a bag. When tiny concrete patio outside the house that after crashing his car while returning Njeri’s brother tries to protect his father Wanjiru had bought her. She was feeling from a party. The autopsy report found from Hannah, she lunges at him with the ill, and her voice was a hoarse whisper. that Prefontaine, who was a regular at a machete, but does not connect. Hannah’s “My son was killed by his wife,” she said. local bar, had been intoxicated. sister gets involved, striking Njeri’s brother “He was killed in the bedroom and then For now, at least, there is no monu- on the back of the neck with a plank. they threw him out.” ment to Wanjiru, and no race bearing The police charged Hannah with dis- Njeri, she told me, had never loved his name. His legacy can be felt mainly turbing the peace and causing bodily her son. “Her family came in for the in the performances of friends like Pat- harm. (In a statement, she said that wealth. Our family should rick Makau, a twenty-seven- Njeri’s family attacked her first.) The fu- benefit, not her family.” year-old Kenyan who often neral went ahead a week later, without After the postmortem, a talked to Wanjiru about Hannah. The crowds were large and rain local judge ordered that an running the Berlin Mara- lashed down as the coffin was lowered inquest be held in Nairobi, thon together, in an attempt into the red earth. A pink marble tomb- to “allay the strong feelings” to break the world record. stone was laid on top; it featured a pho- of Hannah and Njeri. The In September, 2011, with tograph of Wanjiru in a gray suit, his ex- inquest still has not taken Wan jiru’s friend Macharia pression reminiscent of the half smile place, and unanswered ques- acting as pacesetter, Makau that had charmed interviewers after his tions about the case have left ran the and marathons. Underneath, on a plaque, many Kenyans feeling that they have not broke the world record by twenty-one were these words: “You fought a good been told the whole truth. seconds, with a time of 2:03:38. A month fight, finished the race and kept the faith. Several of the people closest to Wan- later, another Kenyan, Wilson Kipsang, You will forever live within our hearts.” jiru, including his training partner Gath- ran just four seconds slower, in Frankfurt. eru, believe that his death was an accident Macharia believes that Wanjiru’s break- month after Wanjiru’s funeral, as I caused by drunkenness. While Wanjiru’s through races made these times possi- was talking to Njeri at her home in house was being built, he and Gatheru ble—and that his friend could have run a ANyahururu, she told me that she needed had watched the workers hop off the bal- marathon under 2:03:00. to go out. The previous day, Hannah had cony to fetch tools, so it was not a stretch “When Sammy won in Beijing, he come to her house with a prophetess to imagine that he had tried to jump showed everybody that it is just not about from the church, and they had agreed to himself. Wanjiru had been wearing the course or the weather,” Macharia reconcile. A ceremony marking the leather-soled shoes with limited grip, said. “He changed the marathon com- breakthrough was taking place that eve- Gatheru said. The day after Wanjiru’s pletely. He would not give up. He feared ning, and Njeri invited me along. death, Gatheru and others noticed that nobody.” 

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