With just hours to go, the prevailing mood in Britain was hardly celebratory. On streets washed by rain, the number of tourists in London’s capital seemed below the average for the time of year. The last minute preparations were far from frenzied and all that anyone was certain of was that the opening ceremony involved live sheep.
But then the brutal cynicism that greets every major event in Britain was washed away by an event that left many around the world scratching their heads. The spectacular, which included dancing nurses, engineers, Shakespeare, James Bond and a cameo from the Queen, was a satisfying antidote to the blanket corporate sponsorship that had alienated many Londoners ahead of the games.
<div id="attachment_1187" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1187" class="size-medium wp-image-1187" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149916643_10-300x203.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="203" />WINDSOR, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 02: Sizwe Ndlovu, John Smith, Matthew Brittain and James Thompson of South Africa celebrate winning the gold medal for the Lightweight Men&#8217;s Four final on on Day 6 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Eton Dorney on August 2, 2012 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)</div>
The ceremony—which saw a celebration of the National Health Service, the industrial revolution and modern day British multiculturalism—combined wit, elegance and a theatricality. It confounded a widespread belief in the country that the event would be an expensive and embarrassing disaster.
A security fiasco, which saw G4S, the lead contractor, admit with weeks to go, that it had not hired enough staff to man the games, saw the army drafted in to run X-ray scanners and patrol the venues. Last minute problems on some of the major routes into London raised fears of transport chaos, but, though the infrastructure creaked under the weight of the additional hundreds of thousands of users, it held—just.
Even the weather, which had appeared apocalyptic, from March through to July, turned. The ceaseless rain gave way to fierce sunshine as summer smiled—although the hailstorms did return to add spice to the cycling road race.
The early stages were not encouraging for African teams. Nigerian slalom kayak hopeful, Johny Akinyemi, fell at the first hurdle, accumulating too many penalties in his two runs in the K1 event and failing to reach the semi-finals.
The Nigerian basketball team, which qualified at the eleventh hour for their first appearance at an Olympic Games, showed some promise, but came up against a rampant USA ‘Dream Team’, who notched up an Olympic record winning spread of 156-73. One of the country’s two individual medalists from the Beijing Olympics in 2008—Chika Chukwumerije—had to wait until close to the end of the event to try to better his bronze in the +80kg Taekwondo.
<div id="attachment_1185" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1185" class="size-medium wp-image-1185" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/150115672_10-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="214" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 10: Meseret Defar of Ethiopia celebrates as she crosses the finish line ahead of Jepkemoi Jepkemoi Cheruiyot of Kenya and Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia celebrates winning gold in the Women&#8217;s 5000m Final on Day 14 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 10, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)</div>
Not that it mattered—London’s large Nigerian community has been vocal in its support of its team. A three day conference saw ministers and some of the country’s leading businesspeople gather in the Dorchester Hotel, while around town other delegations turned up to show off their country’s investment opportunities.
Juliano Máquina, Mozambique’s light-flyweight boxing hopeful, was soundly beaten by a clinical Aleksandar Aleksandrov, the Bulgarian took apart the Olympic debutant over the three rounds to win on points 22-7. Thomas Essomba, from Cameroon, the other African fancied in the weight category, put in a solid first round win, but failed to make the quarter finals, beaten by the Northern Irishman Paddy Barnes.
South Africa picked up some early successes in and on the water. The South African men’s lightweight four picked up a gold in the rowing, while Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos were the surprise winners in the 100m breaststroke and the 200m butterfly, respectively. The latter, saw le Clos beat the world’s best—the American, Michael Phelps—by a fingernail, and made a hero of his father, Burt le Clos, whose hoarse and emotional post-swim interview with BBC quickly went viral.
As the first week drew to a close, it was only South Africans who had made it to the podium.
Hopes were boosted when the Kenyans arrived. With three Olympic champions—Pamela Jelimo, Brimin Kipruto and Asbel Kiprop—and four world champions—Vivian Cheruiyot, Ezekiel Kemboi, Edna Kiplagat and captain David Rudisha—named in their squad for the London games, there was no doubt the East Africans had come to win. Rudisha, an 800m runner, was set to follow in the footsteps of his father by participating in the 4x400m relay—the team’s pedigree crossed generations. In Beijing, Kenya was the highest ranking African country in the medal tables, taking six golds and 14 medals overall.
This time, they rejected the offer of a training base in Bristol, to the west of London, preferring to remain in Kenya to train at altitude right up to the last minute.
<div id="attachment_1189" style="width: 215px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1189" class="size-medium wp-image-1189" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149585173_10-205x300.jpg" alt="" width="205" height="300" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; JULY 31: Chad le Clos of South Africa celebrates after winning the gold in the Men&#8217;s 200m Butterfly final on Day 4 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre on July 31, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)</div>
Cheruiyot was the first in action, taking on a strong field, including the Ethiopian Olympic champion, Tirunesh Dibaba, in the 10,000m final. In the end, it was the Ethiopian’s day, kicking ahead to win gold, with Cheruiyot trailing in third behind her compatriot Sally Kipyego.
It was the Ethiopians again who denied Kenya in the women’s marathon; Tiki Gelana beat Priscah Jeptoo by five seconds to claim gold in the thrashing rain.
The highly fancied men’s team fared even worse in the 10,000m. On home turf, the British runner, Mo Farah, took gold ahead of the American Galen Rupp and Ethiopia’s Tariku Bekele, with the Kenyans trailing outside of the medal positions. It was the first time since 1984 that an African runner had not won the event—although some were quick to claim Mogadishu-born Farah for the continent. In a rather ugly series of attacks in the run-up to the games, the right-wing press had railed against Britain’s foreign-born competitors using the epithet “plastic Brits”. Farah’s response was definitive. Having taken gold, a journalist asked him whether he would have preferred to have won the medal for Somalia.
“Look, mate,” Farah replied, “This is my country.”
The Kenyans had to wait until Sunday afternoon to finally break their duck, Ezekiel Kemboi, a policeman facing an assault charge back in his home country, stormed ahead in the last lap of the 3,000m steeplechase, after his compatriot, Brimin Kipruto, had fallen. At the end of the race, Kemboi announced that he would retire from the discipline to focus on the marathon.
Amongst the running contingent was Guor Marial, whose story captured the imagination of many in the international media in the run up to the games. Marial was one of four competitors who joined the parade of athletes underneath the Olympic flag. Three—Churandy Martina, Philip Elhage and Rodion Davelaar—are previous competitors from the Netherlands Antilles, which recently became a municipality of the Netherlands.
<div id="attachment_1188" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1188" class="size-medium wp-image-1188" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149771045_10-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 03: Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia celebrates winning gold in the Women&#8217;s 10,000m Final on Day 7 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)</div>
Marial, in his first Olympics, was born in South Sudan, and turned down an offer from Khartoum to run for the north. Granted refugee status by the US when he was 16, the marathon runner lost many of his relatives in the vicious civil war that saw millions displaced. With South Sudan newly independent and lacking an organizing committee, the decision by officials to allow Marial a spot marks the first time an athlete from Africa’s 54th nation has been able to compete.
While stories like that of Marial have provided great examples of the redemptive power of sport, the event continues to raise questions about the ability of athletes from the continent to be able to make their mark. While the raw talent and commitment of African competitors has seen them dominate a few important sports in recent decades, the London games more than any other may have shown that top-level sport is becoming so clearly bifurcated between the haves and the have-nots. The dominance of the US and China in the medal tables showed that financial clout can be the difference between a victor and an also-ran.
The press fell in love with the stories of hardship and graft of willing amateurs like Hamadou Djibo Issaka, the rower from Niger who took up the sport only months before the games. He worked as a gardener and swimming pool attendant in Niamey and trained in an old fishing boat. The 35-year-old finished a distant last in the single sculls. While narratives like his provide great examples of the vaunted “Olympic Spirit”, they also highlight the vast discrepancies in resources. British rowers, who had one of their best years at home, are the product of a well-established network of training facilities, coaches, equipment and finance.
In the end, African hopes fell in the most part to domestic competitors, as British athletes, fired up by the support in London, won through in events that would normally be dominated by the continent’s finest.
Although much noise was made around the ‘Africa Village’ hospitality area about a potential bid by Durban for 2024, with no African countries on the shortlist for 2020, it will be more than a decade before anyone on the continent will be able to claim that home advantage.
<div id="attachment_1186" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1186" class="size-medium wp-image-1186" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149948438_10.jpg.-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Track &amp; Field: 2012 Summer Olympics: Kenya Ezekiel Kemboi victorious after winning Men&#8217;s 3000M Steeplechase Final gold at Olympic Stadium. London, United Kingdom 8/5/2012 CREDIT: John W. McDonough (Photo by John W. McDonough /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images) (Set Number: X155268 TK11 R1 F174 )</div>
Kenya’s prime minister, Raila Odinga, threw his country’s hat into the ring for a bid, reminding press that the country is not only home to some of the world’s greatest runners, elite athletes already flock to the high altitude training centres in Iten, in the Rift Valley. However, major international investment—and a change in international perceptions of the country, and the continent more broadly—would be needed for that bid to take off. It is unlikely to have been enhanced by the closure of the ‘Africa Village’ early due to unpaid debts, caused by the failure of many African Olympic committees to turn up and take out space.

From African Grit  To Plastic Brits

With just hours to go, the prevailing mood in Britain was hardly celebratory. On streets washed by rain, the number of tourists in London’s capital seemed below the average for the time of year. The last minute preparations were far from frenzied and all that anyone was certain of was that the opening ceremony involved live sheep.
But then the brutal cynicism that greets every major event in Britain was washed away by an event that left many around the world scratching their heads. The spectacular, which included dancing nurses, engineers, Shakespeare, James Bond and a cameo from the Queen, was a satisfying antidote to the blanket corporate sponsorship that had alienated many Londoners ahead of the games.
<div id="attachment_1187" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1187" class="size-medium wp-image-1187" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149916643_10-300x203.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="203" />WINDSOR, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 02: Sizwe Ndlovu, John Smith, Matthew Brittain and James Thompson of South Africa celebrate winning the gold medal for the Lightweight Men&#8217;s Four final on on Day 6 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Eton Dorney on August 2, 2012 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)</div>
The ceremony—which saw a celebration of the National Health Service, the industrial revolution and modern day British multiculturalism—combined wit, elegance and a theatricality. It confounded a widespread belief in the country that the event would be an expensive and embarrassing disaster.
A security fiasco, which saw G4S, the lead contractor, admit with weeks to go, that it had not hired enough staff to man the games, saw the army drafted in to run X-ray scanners and patrol the venues. Last minute problems on some of the major routes into London raised fears of transport chaos, but, though the infrastructure creaked under the weight of the additional hundreds of thousands of users, it held—just.
Even the weather, which had appeared apocalyptic, from March through to July, turned. The ceaseless rain gave way to fierce sunshine as summer smiled—although the hailstorms did return to add spice to the cycling road race.
<div id="attachment_1186" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1186" class="size-medium wp-image-1186" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149948438_10.jpg.-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Track &amp; Field: 2012 Summer Olympics: Kenya Ezekiel Kemboi victorious after winning Men&#8217;s 3000M Steeplechase Final gold at Olympic Stadium. London, United Kingdom 8/5/2012 CREDIT: John W. McDonough (Photo by John W. McDonough /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images) (Set Number: X155268 TK11 R1 F174 )</div>
The early stages were not encouraging for African teams. Nigerian slalom kayak hopeful, Johny Akinyemi, fell at the first hurdle, accumulating too many penalties in his two runs in the K1 event and failing to reach the semi-finals.
The Nigerian basketball team, which qualified at the eleventh hour for their first appearance at an Olympic Games, showed some promise, but came up against a rampant USA ‘Dream Team’, who notched up an Olympic record winning spread of 156-73. One of the country’s two individual medalists from the Beijing Olympics in 2008—Chika Chukwumerije—had to wait until close to the end of the event to try to better his bronze in the +80kg Taekwondo.
Not that it mattered—London’s large Nigerian community has been vocal in its support of its team. A three day conference saw ministers and some of the country’s leading businesspeople gather in the Dorchester Hotel, while around town other delegations turned up to show off their country’s investment opportunities.
Juliano Máquina, Mozambique’s light-flyweight boxing hopeful, was soundly beaten by a clinical Aleksandar Aleksandrov, the Bulgarian took apart the Olympic debutant over the three rounds to win on points 22-7. Thomas Essomba, from Cameroon, the other African fancied in the weight category, put in a solid first round win, but failed to make the quarter finals, beaten by the Northern Irishman Paddy Barnes.
South Africa picked up some early successes in and on the water. The South African men’s lightweight four picked up a gold in the rowing, while Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos were the surprise winners in the 100m breaststroke and the 200m butterfly, respectively. The latter, saw le Clos beat the world’s best—the American, Michael Phelps—by a fingernail, and made a hero of his father, Burt le Clos, whose hoarse and emotional post-swim interview with BBC quickly went viral.
<div id="attachment_1189" style="width: 215px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1189" class="size-medium wp-image-1189" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149585173_10-205x300.jpg" alt="" width="205" height="300" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; JULY 31: Chad le Clos of South Africa celebrates after winning the gold in the Men&#8217;s 200m Butterfly final on Day 4 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre on July 31, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)</div>
As the first week drew to a close, it was only South Africans who had made it to the podium.
Hopes were boosted when the Kenyans arrived. With three Olympic champions—Pamela Jelimo, Brimin Kipruto and Asbel Kiprop—and four world champions—Vivian Cheruiyot, Ezekiel Kemboi, Edna Kiplagat and captain David Rudisha—named in their squad for the London games, there was no doubt the East Africans had come to win. Rudisha, an 800m runner, was set to follow in the footsteps of his father by participating in the 4x400m relay—the team’s pedigree crossed generations. In Beijing, Kenya was the highest ranking African country in the medal tables, taking six golds and 14 medals overall.
This time, they rejected the offer of a training base in Bristol, to the west of London, preferring to remain in Kenya to train at altitude right up to the last minute.
Cheruiyot was the first in action, taking on a strong field, including the Ethiopian Olympic champion, Tirunesh Dibaba, in the 10,000m final. In the end, it was the Ethiopian’s day, kicking ahead to win gold, with Cheruiyot trailing in third behind her compatriot Sally Kipyego.
It was the Ethiopians again who denied Kenya in the women’s marathon; Tiki Gelana beat Priscah Jeptoo by five seconds to claim gold in the thrashing rain.
The highly fancied men’s team fared even worse in the 10,000m. On home turf, the British runner, Mo Farah, took gold ahead of the American Galen Rupp and Ethiopia’s Tariku Bekele, with the Kenyans trailing outside of the medal positions. It was the first time since 1984 that an African runner had not won the event—although some were quick to claim Mogadishu-born Farah for the continent. In a rather ugly series of attacks in the run-up to the games, the right-wing press had railed against Britain’s foreign-born competitors using the epithet “plastic Brits”. Farah’s response was definitive. Having taken gold, a journalist asked him whether he would have preferred to have won the medal for Somalia.
“Look, mate,” Farah replied, “This is my country.”
The Kenyans had to wait until Sunday afternoon to finally break their duck, Ezekiel Kemboi, a policeman facing an assault charge back in his home country, stormed ahead in the last lap of the 3,000m steeplechase, after his compatriot, Brimin Kipruto, had fallen. At the end of the race, Kemboi announced that he would retire from the discipline to focus on the marathon.
<div id="attachment_1185" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1185" class="size-medium wp-image-1185" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/150115672_10-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="214" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 10: Meseret Defar of Ethiopia celebrates as she crosses the finish line ahead of Jepkemoi Jepkemoi Cheruiyot of Kenya and Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia celebrates winning gold in the Women&#8217;s 5000m Final on Day 14 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 10, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)</div>
Amongst the running contingent was Guor Marial, whose story captured the imagination of many in the international media in the run up to the games. Marial was one of four competitors who joined the parade of athletes underneath the Olympic flag. Three—Churandy Martina, Philip Elhage and Rodion Davelaar—are previous competitors from the Netherlands Antilles, which recently became a municipality of the Netherlands.
Marial, in his first Olympics, was born in South Sudan, and turned down an offer from Khartoum to run for the north. Granted refugee status by the US when he was 16, the marathon runner lost many of his relatives in the vicious civil war that saw millions displaced. With South Sudan newly independent and lacking an organizing committee, the decision by officials to allow Marial a spot marks the first time an athlete from Africa’s 54th nation has been able to compete.
While stories like that of Marial have provided great examples of the redemptive power of sport, the event continues to raise questions about the ability of athletes from the continent to be able to make their mark. While the raw talent and commitment of African competitors has seen them dominate a few important sports in recent decades, the London games more than any other may have shown that top-level sport is becoming so clearly bifurcated between the haves and the have-nots. The dominance of the US and China in the medal tables showed that financial clout can be the difference between a victor and an also-ran.
The press fell in love with the stories of hardship and graft of willing amateurs like Hamadou Djibo Issaka, the rower from Niger who took up the sport only months before the games. He worked as a gardener and swimming pool attendant in Niamey and trained in an old fishing boat. The 35-year-old finished a distant last in the single sculls. While narratives like his provide great examples of the vaunted “Olympic Spirit”, they also highlight the vast discrepancies in resources. British rowers, who had one of their best years at home, are the product of a well-established network of training facilities, coaches, equipment and finance.
<div id="attachment_1188" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1188" class="size-medium wp-image-1188" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149771045_10-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 03: Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia celebrates winning gold in the Women&#8217;s 10,000m Final on Day 7 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)</div>
In the end, African hopes fell in the most part to domestic competitors, as British athletes, fired up by the support in London, won through in events that would normally be dominated by the continent’s finest.
Although much noise was made around the ‘Africa Village’ hospitality area about a potential bid by Durban for 2024, with no African countries on the shortlist for 2020, it will be more than a decade before anyone on the continent will be able to claim that home advantage.
Kenya’s prime minister, Raila Odinga, threw his country’s hat into the ring for a bid, reminding press that the country is not only home to some of the world’s greatest runners, elite athletes already flock to the high altitude training centres in Iten, in the Rift Valley. However, major international investment—and a change in international perceptions of the country, and the continent more broadly—would be needed for that bid to take off. It is unlikely to have been enhanced by the closure of the ‘Africa Village’ early due to unpaid debts, caused by the failure of many African Olympic committees to turn up and take out space.

Runners Kipchoge Keino and Pamela Jelimo are divided by age, but united by the fact that they are both Olympic champions. The contrast in their Olympic lives tells the story of half a century of change for African athletes.
Keino—known as “Kip”—ran when athletics was an amateur sport. Jelimo burst onto the scene as a professional athlete. For her, the Olympic medal meant ‘increased personal brand value’—as the marketing men say these days.
Kip, 72, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, is chairman of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK). He has kept his lean, athletic, whipcord frame that propelled him down the track to glory in Mexico.
Kip won the 1,500 meters gold in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, amid the energy-sapping, thin air caused by the altitude, on a day he defied the doctors, who recommended that he pull out. Legend has it that Kip was stuck in Mexico City’s notorious traffic before the race and had to run a mile to the stadium to make the starting line-up in time. In the race, Kip beat United States track star Jim Ryun by more than 20 meters—a record, before going on to win the silver in the 5,000 meters. He was just 23.
<div id="attachment_816" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-816" class="wp-image-816 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/50438922_10-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Kenyan track star Kipchoge Keino (L) finishing ahead of teammate Ben Jipcho (574) in the 3,000-meter steeplechase final at the Summer Olympics. (Photo by John Dominis//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)</div>
Four years later, in the 1972 Olympics in Germany, he won gold in the 3,000 meters steeplechase and silver in the 1,500 meters.
“To be an Olympic champion takes a lot of dedication from an individual,” he says.
“The Olympic gold was for you, the country and the continent of Africa. There were very few athletes from Africa in those days and it is not like what you have today.”
Kip says his biggest problem was getting time off from work.
“Sometimes being on duty meant missing meals and then you had to go train, even without a meal. There was nothing like nutrition,” he says.
“During our time we had no coaches. It was up to you to personally work on your skills in your own free time. We were not allowed to go out for more than 28 days a year because of a rule put in place by the International Association of Athletics Federations. In those days, we had amateur status, not like today.”
Kip was a police officer from the late 1960s, rising through the ranks to become chief inspector. He retired from athletics in 1973.
Jelimo embodies the renaissance of Kenyan women in athletics: for the first time, they have better prospects of bringing home gold than the men.
Jelimo, 22, the reigning 800 meters Olympic champion, is also a police officer. But unlike in Kip’s day, there are more flexible working hours to allow for international athletics events.
Also unlike Kip, Jelimo has a number of trainers—including Bryan Engelherdt and other runners like Daniel Sirima—to help her prepare. She is expected to be one of the hotshots at the London Olympics as she runs for a second gold in the 800 meters.
It hasn’t been easy. Jelimo may have gone back to winning ways this year, clinching gold at the World Indoor Championships in Turkey in March, but injury, namely a strained Achilles tendon, has been her biggest opponent.
“I have suffered for three years because of many injuries, but I pray that I will continue working hard and keep the spirit burning, so that by the end of June, I will be in my best competitive form.”
<div id="attachment_817" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-817" class="size-large wp-image-817" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Forbes.Africa-Dr.Keino-12cm8cm@300dpi-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Kip Keino</div>
The Olympics is her main objective. “I know that I am the defending champion, but the main objective will be to run under two minutes in the Kenyan qualifying rounds to make it to the Olympics.”
Jelimo, then 18, won gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2000, which was the icing on the cake for a very successful year. She became the first Kenyan to win the $1 million Golden League Jackpot that very year. Those earnings were a just reward for the years of toil in which her parents struggled to put her through school.
“Athletics is like a cake and everybody wants to have a piece of it.  Sports is very rewarding and people should take it seriously [if they have the] talent,” she says.
Kip was actually one of the athletes at the forefront of making the sport professional. “We were not being paid for running. So the year after the Munich Olympics, we decided to form an International Track Association (ITA), where the athletes would run in field events and make money. The athletes would be paid like in other sport such as tennis. The IAAF [International Association of Athletics Federation] realised that ITA would overtake them and so IAAF also started paying athletes the money.”
The prize money has made athletics more lucrative as a sport and as Jelimo works her way back from injury, she acknowledges the increasing competition in the sport.
“It is hard coming back, after being out, to compete with people who have been training for three months. You cannot take a race and say it is simple. There is no race which is that simple,” she says.
Some of her main challengers for the Olympic gold are fellow Kenyan runner Janeth Jepkosgei and the South African, Caster Semenya.
“I don’t fear anybody when I am in the field. When I am in shape, I am in shape because you know everybody is fighting for it and you should be fighting for it. It is all mental,” she says.
Kip says there is rising competition and that victory is hard these days.
“Well, for Kenyans it can be natural, but what about the other people in the world? They can also be nurtured to compete. Anybody in the world can do anything with the talent God has given them,” he says. “There is nothing special about Kenyan athletes. The only thing that is special is their training. They prepare themselves physically and mentally.”

A Tale Of Two  Runners

The gun cracked. The runner shot forward. Her breathing was normal. She soon found her rhythm as they hit the first bend. The group at the front was bunched. The woman in green and gold held steady. As they neared the 400-meter mark, she could feel the Kenyan, Janeth Jepkosgei, breathing down her neck. As the bell went for the last lap, she increased the pace but the Kenyan went with her. That’s when it happened. Two hundred meters to go; it was like a second gun exploded. Eighteen-year-old Caster Semenya surged forward with her long, powerful strides as she tore away from the field to win her first world 800-meter title in a remarkable time of 1:55.45—a glorious victory.
It was the 800-meter women’s final at the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin, and Semenya had just become the first South African to win the event.
The world was at her feet. Then the gender controversy began. Suddenly, Semenya was known for her deep voice and muscular build, not normally associated with a teenage girl, rather than her running. She was subjected to a long and public gender verification saga by world athletics. People argued over her case; petty politicians used her as a political football. Semenya was withdrawn from competition until July 2010, before she was cleared to run again—a long and painful exclusion. Many would have given up—she could have, but she refused.
<div id="attachment_806" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-806" class="size-large wp-image-806" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/124075220_10-685x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="709" />FRANCE &#8211; AUGUST 26: The 9th Athletics world championships in St Denis In Paris, France On August 26, 2003 &#8211; Maria Mutola (Moz) wins gold medal in the 800 meters. (Photo by Pool BASSIGNAC/DUCLOS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)</div>
Semenya came back to defend her title in 2011 in Daegu, South Korea, and was beaten narrowly in the final straight as she came in with a time of 1:56.35—a commendable performance, considering the events leading up to the race. Now Semenya plans to go one step further—she wants gold at the Olympic Games in London.
The odds, for the first time, are stacked in her favor. Since her win in Berlin almost three years ago, she has been in contact with former Olympic Gold medallist in the 800-meters at the 2000 games, Mozambican Maria Mutola.
No stranger to gender controversy herself, although all was proved unwarranted, the 39-year-old Mutola recently replaced Semenya’s coach, Michael Seme, at the end of last year. Legend has it that Mutola was caught masquerading as a man when she played in a football cup final back home in Maputo. Amid the furore, a coach spotted her running talent and the rest, as they say, is history.
Mutola dominated the two-lap race during the 1990s and into the next century. During this time, she became a seven-time world indoor gold medallist and she also added three world 800 meters gold medals to her tally.
Mutola and Semenya make a powerful team gunning for gold in July. Mutola trains the now 21-year-old prodigy in Pretoria, north of Johannesburg.
“Me and Caster have been talking since she won the World Championships in Berlin, so we’ve been in contact ever since,” she pauses with a glint of pride in her eye.
“Any time she needed advice, she would call me and then we would talk a little bit. It’s been a long-term relationship. I’ve known Caster since then, it just fell into place, so it wasn’t anything strange when she approached me and asked if I would train her.”
Since then, the duo have been specific in their targets, and Semenya recently ran her second Olympic qualifying time at a Yellow Pages Meeting in Pretoria on April 21, guaranteeing her place at the Olympics showpiece.
She ran 1:59.58 and in so doing, at high-altitude, became the first South African woman to run under two minutes on home soil in 21 years.
Now Mutola has her sights firmly set on the top honor: the Olympic gold.
“[I think] very good advice is to be in shape, to stay healthy and go to London in shape, to be able to win it.
“[Judging from] all the Olympics I have been through, it is going to take under two minutes to be able to win it. You have to produce 1:55/1:56 to be able to win the race because everyone is training for the same event—to be an Olympic champion.”
Now Semenya heads overseas to begin her final preparations by competing in Europe.
“The most important thing is to have confidence in oneself going to these European track meets. You have to be able to win over there, run good times and go to the Olympics with a lot of confidence. That is a very important thing for athletes.”
Semenya was expected to qualify sooner for the showpiece, but now that she has run the time, everything is back on track, according to Mutola as she alluded again to the gold medal.
“In terms of her preparations, I have to say it is going very well at the moment, I was a bit concerned at the beginning but I see that we are improving, we are doing the right thing. Everything is going well at the moment.
“The most important thing is for her to stay in shape and believe in herself. When she gets to the Olympic Games, anybody who qualifies for the finals has a chance of winning gold.”
Mutola believes Semenya could be the best ever. She says the world record set in 1983 by Czech runner Jarmila Kratochvílová looks set to tumble if Semenya stays on course. “I always thought she would be the one to break the world record because when she was 18, she was running 1:55’s and I think when she is about 25, and more mature, she would probably break the world record.
“If you are 18 and run a 1:55, that means that if you are 20-something, you would be able to run between 1:52 and 1:53 and that indication I see in Caster. I hope and I know she can be the one to break that world record that has been standing for a very long time.”
One thing is for sure: with the troubles of her past behind her, the Mutola-Semenya southern African team will be the hot favorite come the end of July. The history books await.

Tag: Athletics

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