Abubaker Kaki of Sudan during the Press Conference (© Getty Images)
After his World junior 800m record of 1:42.69 earlier this year, Abubaker Kaki has the potential to be one of the stars of next month’s Olympics, so one might wonder why the 19-year-old has chosen to line up at the IAAF World Junior Championships against athletes more than three seconds slower than him.
The answer lies in the fact that his native Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is yet to win a gold medal in these championships – and Kaki is keen to change that.
The World indoor champion astounded the athletics world with his run in Oslo last month when he became the fastest in the world for five years for the distance. Coupled with his win at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Valencia in March, he is a hot favourite to win the two-lap event in Beijing.
However, Kaki is not taking victory for granted – despite the fact that the next quickest on the start lists on season’s bests is Germany’s Sebastian Keiner with 1:45.98.
“I’m very confident, but I never want to underestimate any athletes,” said Kaki, who went on to explain why it was so important for him to compete in Bydgoszcz.
“Sudan have never had a medal in the world junior championships,” he said. “They have had two silvers and a bronze, so I would like to support them to be a model for the upcoming athletes. My main aim is the Olympics, but I am coming here to support my team.”
Valencia buid-up
Kaki’s country is important to him and he said winning in Valencia went a long way toward replacing some of the headlines arising from the civil unrest in parts of Sudan.
“Valencia was a great experience. It was the one thing I could do to change the bad image of my country,” said Kaki, who earlier this year had his training hampered when the fighting meant his group were unable to leave the capital Khartoum for a high-altitude camp in Yemen.
However, Kaki is largely unaffected by the problems and has no ambitions to leave the country he loves and which has made him a national hero since his win in Valencia.
He arrived home from Spain to a welcome normally reserved for a winning football team. “I could not believe it. There were about 15,000 people on the street and the airport,” he said.
His coach, Jama Aden, a former Somalian 800m runner, said Kaki was the most revered sportsperson in Sudan.
“They are expecting him to win (Olympic gold),” he said. “I don’t think a silver medal at the Olympics is good enough for them after what I have seen from the reception at the airport. It was like Brazil winning the World Cup.” He is so popular that thousands turn up just to watch him train when he is in Sudan.
Building adequate training facilities
So proud was the Sudanese government with their new sporting hero that they gave him a piece of land.
If he goes on winning rewards from his country and money on the European circuit, his next priority may be to build adequate training facilities to use when he is in Sudan, said Aden.
Sudan’s only track – in Khartoum – is in a pitiful state, said Aden, who added: “He can’t be No.1 in the world and train with those facilities. We really appreciate it when we come to Europe and see the facilities and think, ‘wow’. If Sudan had the facilities like that, they would produce millions of Kakis.”
But for now gold in Poland is the main aim and shortly after that, at the IAAF Super Grand Prix on July 22, Kaki will attempt to break the world 1000m record of 2:11.96 set by Noah Ngeny in 1999.
Kaki ran 2:15.77 indoors this year to come within a second of his idol Wilson Kipketer’s World record on the boards. However, he admits the Dane’s outdoor world mark of 1:41.11 is not in his immediate aims.
“That may be for another year,” he said. “But anything is possible and I always give it my best shot.”
Paul Halford for the IAAF
