Hilda Kibet (NED) wins the 2008 European XC women's race (© Mark Shearman)
The Netherlands' Hilda Kibet knows what a World Cross Country Championships gold medal looks like.
She’s seen the one that her close friend but not-quite-so-close relation Lornah Kiplagat won two years ago in Mombasa and now the effervescent Kenyan-born physiotherapist wants a medal of her own, and preferably of a golden hue, at the 37th IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Amman, Jordan, on Saturday 28 March 2009.
Kiplagat the role model
“I'm going to Amman to try to do better than last year. I know it will be a different type of course to those that I've usually done well on in the past, much drier and harder, but a good result will also give me a lot of confidence ahead of the World Championships on the track this summer,” said Kibet.
She showed her class at cross country running when she came home as the leading European runner in fifth place at last year's IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland - her first ever appearance at the event - and she was a convincing winner of the European title in the Belgian capital of Brussels last December.
Kiplagat won that particular accolade herself in 2005 and her relative, and it will become apparent shortly why there is not easy way of describing their family link, has been instrumental in urging her on to follow in her footsteps ever since.
“Lornah is my best friend, she is always sending me SMS messages before races to encourage me. I'm sure she'll be doing the same when I get to Amman.”
There will, no doubt, also be some birthday greetings being passed on as Kibet turns 28 the day before the race.
Kiplagat is often referred to as being her aunt but the reality is a little more tenuous. “Let's look at it this way. Lornah's father had about 10 brothers and sisters and one of his older sister's is my grandmother,” explained Kibet. “But it doesn't matter as Lornah is more like my big sister in real life as she's only about seven years older than me.”
Mud, glorious mud
The likely conditions the runners will face on Amman's Bisharat Golf Course mean that Kibet is downplaying her chances of getting on the podium despite her automatic inclusion among the favourites after her big time cross country performances in the last 12 months.
“I think people would have been more worried about me if the conditions were like last year in Scotland,” she joked.
“I think many runners don't like tough courses and they also have this idea that I run well under those conditions but I think my advantage is more psychological than anything physical. “
“It also works the other way as well, I have confidence if I see that a course is tough and muddy. I don't think I have any special physical ability more than any other good runner in these conditions, I don't turn into a superhero when you put me and mud together, but back in 2005 and 2006, I was starting to run well and I was able to spend more time training in those years. As a result, I was getting some good performances on muddy courses.”
“Consequently I told myself: 'Hey, you are good in the mud!' To be honest, I think it was a coincidence, cross country courses in Holland are often like that and I was training hard so it was a case of everything coming together.”
Nevertheless, one piece of information that may boost Kibet's confidence is the knowledge that of the four women who finished in front of her in Edinburgh, only Kenya's Linet Masai is expected to be alongside her on the start line in Amman this year.
Kenyan preparations
“As I was born in Kenya, I often return there for my preparations. It's a great place to train for a distance runner, and I still have family there. It's the same this year ahead of the World Cross Country Championships,” commented Kibet.
In fact, Kibet has only run one cross country race since she won her European title in Brussels three months ago, finishing third at the historic Cross Internacional de Itálica in Sevilla on 18 January, the race being an IAAF Cross Country Permit Meeting.
“My shape was not very good in Sevilla as I had a cold for about a week around the start of the year, I caught it off Hugo (her partner, the Dutch international marathoner Hugo van den Broek) as he had the same illness a few days before, though not as bad as me. I was in bed for several days, and didn't train for a week, so under the circumstances it was a reasonable performance there. It was actually better than what I was expecting, considering I had been quite ill.”
Kibet was beaten in Spain by the Kenyan pair of Florence Kiplagat - no relation to Lornah and Hilda - and Pauline Korikwiang and she will be out to seek a modicum of revenge as both women will be in the Kenya team going to Amman.
Since her outing there, Kibet has been training hard in Kenya mainly working out of the high altitude training centre in Iten, which is owned by Lornah.
She has only broken camp to have two races on the roads, winning a 10km back home in The Netherlands on 9 February and then coming home second behind Lornah over a half marathon in Lagos, Nigeria, two weeks later.
“I wouldn't look too much at the times of those races,” added Kibet, with a broad smile. “The race at home was the famous Groet Uit Schoorl Run and part of it is run over woodland trails and sand dunes while Lagos was incredibly hot and humid.”
Berlin beckons
Kibet also confirmed that she expects to run the 10,000m at the World Championships in Berlin but, in the longer term, it is highly likely that she will be seen in the marathon at major championships.
“In Berlin, I want to definitely improve on the 15th place I got in Beijing. I was actually in much better shape than that results suggests but I was in a pre-Games camp in Fukuoka (Japan) for several weeks and just became too focussed, too obsessed, about the race itself and I think that contributed to my poor run at the Olympics.
“I was thinking about it too much and lost a lot of energy through nerves. Normally, I just fly to where I am racing a day or two before and there is never that same problem. I'm at home, dealing with things at hand. Of course, I think about the race, what I am going to do and the tactics, and talk to Hugo, but there are other things to think about as well. Last year, in Japan, there was nothing else for me to think about but, this year, Berlin is the ideal location for me in this respect.
“After Berlin we'll see what I happens. Lots of people have said to me that they think I will be a very good marathon runner, they have said they can see me doing as well as Lornah.”
If that happens then Kibet will be a very good road runner indeed as Kiplagat has won several big city marathons, the 2007 and 2008 IAAF World Half Marathon titles and she is also the world record holder for 20km and the half marathon.
“I've already run one marathon (the 2007 Amsterdam Marathon) but that was only 2:32 and I know I can run a lot better than that,” she reflected.
Love conquers all
The issue of athletes changing nationalities is a hot topic at the moment but in Kibet's case, it was for love rather than money that motivated her to move to The Netherlands in 2001.
Kibet met van den Broek shortly after she had left school in 2000, while he was on a training trip to Kenya, and they quickly became inseparable.
The pair had a common interest in running, but by Kibet's own admission, she didn't do much to foster her latent talent when she was a teenager as she was concentrating on her academic work.
After arriving in The Netherlands – the pair live in coastal town of Castricum, just north of Amsterdam – she dedicated herself to getting her degree from the Physiotherapy Hogeschool in Amsterdam and it is a profession she's likely to return to when her running days are over.
“I've only been really running in a professional way in the last few years, since getting my degree. Before then, nearly all my effort was going into my studies,” said Kibet, who got her Dutch citizenship on October 14, 2007.
“That's why I enjoy so much doing well. When I arrived in The Netherlands I didn't expect to be winning big races or getting medals. The biggest prize I had ever won before when I was living in Kenya was a blanket in a race organised by Noah Ngeny (the 2000 Olympic 1500m champion),” she added.
Kibet knows that the biggest race of her life is imminent, with $30,000 going to the winner, but you still have the impression that she will take it all in her stride whether she finishes first or 50th in Amman.
Phil Minshull for the IAAF
