Victorious in Algiers - Willy Komen continues the Kenyan Tradition (© AFP)
Another year, another emerging Kenyan steeplechase star. As his victory in the 9th All Africa Games here demonstrated, Willy Komen has developed quickly into a senior force less than one year after winning the World Junior title, in Beijing, last August.
Now Komen is eager for more success – at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics next month and at the Olympic Games, in the city where he became World Junior champion. Aged 20, Komen is a young man in a hurry to prove that Moses Kiptanui was right last year to speak highly of him.
Chasing the shadow of his hero
Kiptanui, three times the World 3000m Steeplechase champion, in the 1990s, and the first man to break 8min, is Komen’s hero. “After Beijing I met Moses Kiptanui and he told me that he had seen me run and that I could run under 8 minutes,” Komen said.
“If a great champion like Moses Kiptanui can say that to me maybe I can make it because he has a lot of experience. He has given me the belief that, if I train hard, I will make it.” By forcing Ezekiel Kemboi, the 2004 Olympic champion in Athens, to accept the silver the medal at the All Africa Games, Komen has come to believe that he can win in Beijing next year.
“The Olympics in Beijing is my big target now and, if I prepare thoroughly, I think I can win,” Komen said. First, though, the World Championships, in Osaka, loom – provided that Komen qualifies through the Kenyan trials next weekend.
Ready for Osaka?
The worry is that, while his challengers for a Kenyan team place in Osaka have been preparing at training camps, Komen has been drawing on his reserves to win gold in Algiers. The difficulty of the challenge of qualifying for Osaka was underlined in Ostrava last month.
Although Komen improved his personal best time to 8:12.46, he finished only third behind countrymen Paul Kipsiele Koech and Reuben Koskgei. But his scope for improvement is unlimited. So raw is his talent that he is self-coached and his race in Ostrava was his only one so far on the European outdoor circuit.
Komen holds the World Junior Championships record (8:14.00) and sees no reason why he should not graduate to the World record one day. The present mark, 7:53.63, has been held since 2004 by Saif Saeed Shaheen, whose switch from Kenya to Qatar ended his birth country’s run of six world champions in a row in 2003.
Shaheen, the former Stephen Cherono, won for Qatar in 2003 and 2005, with Kemboi runner-up both times. But Kenya’s sequence of Olympic success remains intact, with the country celebrating the last six gold medallists, each a different identity.
The sequence started with Julius Korir (1984) and was extended by Julius Kariuki (1988), Matthew Birir (1992), Joseph Keter (1996), Reuben Kosgei (2000) and Kemboi (2004). Komen became part of Kenyan tradition when he became the ninth successive winner from his country to win the All Africa title.
Kenyan tradition led to Steeplechase
“Kenya has been good since we started the steeplechase and we have to follow that tradition,” Komen said. “Now it is my turn to help maintain it.” Asked why Kenya dominated the event so comprehensively, Komen said: “Because we believe. Because we have been winning since we started. It’s Kenya’s event.”
However, Komen had reasons other than tradition for taking up the event. “I did not choose it because the others were running it,” he said. “It came naturally through my spirit." After running 800 and 1500, Komen was 15 when he tried Steeplechase for the first time.
Success was instant but, although he qualified from the heats of an Athletics Kenya meeting in Eldoret, he could not participate. “I qualified for the final but I was needed at school, so I did not go,” he said. “I finished second and that was my call to run the steeplechase."
From Kapyego, with five brothers and four sisters, there is no history of athletics success in Komen’s family. “There is only me,” Komen said, asked if he was related to any famous athletes in Kenya.
African junior champion in 2005, Komen then concentrated on his schooling before preparing for the World Junior Championships last year. This winter he ran indoors at 3000m and soon, he said, he wants more IAAF World Athletics Tour races to gain experience.
Saying that he wants to be a star like other Kenyan steeplechasers, but especially Kiptanui, he will do extraordinarily well to accomplish even half of his hero’s achievements. “I want to strive to follow in his footsteps,” Komen said. “I want to be famous like other Kenyan steeplechasers.”
Kiptanui beat the 8 minutes barrier in Zurich in 1995 (7:59.18), having broken the world record for the first time (8:02.08) at the same venue three years earlier. He also broke world records at 3000 (7:28.96, 1992) and 5000 (12:55.30, 1995). But he never won Olympic gold – in that respect Komen can outstrip his hero.
David Powell for the IAAF