It didn’t start with sensational marathoner Samuel Wanjiru

Mismanaged super talent is a powder keg on the short-travelled road to an explosive self-ruin.

While Samuel Wanjiru raced this sad fact home with his “premature” death, alcohol, women and heavy spending, many naïve investments have been the bane of most sportsmen who heeled from rags to riches, before tumbling down.

Henry Rono for example.

He was said to open bank accounts in the capitals he won races, but later couldn’t recall where the accounts were held.

Rono set a Guinness World Record in the 3,000m steeplechase in 1978 while a student at Washington State University. His record time of 8:05:4s stood for 11 years.

In 1978 and in a span of 81 days the boy from Nandi Hills broke four world records in the 10,000m, 5000m, 3,000m flat and the 3,000m steeplechase- a feat that remains unequalled in the history of distance running.

That was also the year he claimed Gold in the 3,000m and 5,000m during the Edmonton Common Wealth Games. He would repeat the feat in both races during the 1978 All-Africa Games in Algiers.

But Rono, now 59, never had an agent — or financial advisor. He mismanaged his earnings and was arrested in 1986 for allegedly robbing six New Jersey banks. By 1990s Rono was living in a shelter for the homeless in Washington D.C.

The recovering alcoholic, after 20-year plus years hitting the bottle, today coaches high school athletes in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In 2008, Rono attempted to break the World Masters Mile Record for the 55-59-age bracket. His bio, Olympic Dream (which never was since Kenya boycotted the ’76&’80 Olympics), was released in 2007.

“I’ve been to the top of the highest mountain and then down to the bottom of the world,” said Henry Rono in an International Association of Athletics Federations 2008 Inspirational Award.

While Rono wasted his fortune, another Kenyan athlete took the same track via a different route. After breaking the 5,000m-world record, our hero demanded to buy the tallest building in Eldoret town. No one was selling. In “revenge” he constructed a similar one deep in his rural home. It was never completed.

While that could have been a case of juvenile naivety, others are spiked by bad luck. Lameck Aguta won the 101st Boston Marathon (2:10:34hrs) in 1997 along with the $75, 000 (Sh6 million) prize money.

Just before he could defend his title the following year, an accident came calling while driving to Nakuru. Those who came to his rescue made away with the Sh500, 000 he had in the car. Sporting gear valued at Sh100,000 also changed ownership.

He had to raise Sh3 million-hospital bill.

Aguta claimed at the time, that while he was recovering at the Olympic Hospital in London, his agent withdrew Sh3 million from his account.

Aguta tried a comeback with the Dallas White Rock Marathon in 2004 and a stub at the 2005 Boston Marathon, but his times weren’t in the elite league of ’97.

At least Aguta recovered, and survived being clobbered by thugs (who bolted with Sh850, 000) after the accident, and now concentrates on his businesses.

Richard Chelimo, cousin of Moses Kiptanui and brother of Ismael Kirui wasn’t so lucky. The 1992 10,000m world record holder was unable to regain the form that earned him that victory and silver during the 1991 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. He retired in 1996, took to excessive bending of elbows in bars, and succumbed to brain tumour at the Moi Teaching & Referral Hospital, Eldoret, in 2001 at 29.

Paul Kipkoech, the cross-country specialist and the 1987 10,000m-world champion, died in 1995. The last days of the 32-year old were punctuated by hitting the bottle like pounding a racetrack.

We almost forgot small incidents that derail careers.

In 1993, John Ngugi, the 1988 Soul Olympics 5000m Gold medallist and one of the greatest cross-country runners of all time, was slapped with a four-year suspension after he refused to take an out-of-competition drug test. Ngugi spent Sh6.5 million trying to fight his case in Monaco.

While the suspension was reduced, mitigation being the failure by Kenya Athletics Federation’s (now Athletics) failure to educate local athletes about out-of-competition testing, his career was flat-footed for good.

Local athletes too need to be trained on media and public relation skills, besides the counselling and investment body Athletics Kenya is setting up. Responding to questions for instance is predictably a dreary affair.

After winning a Mercedes Benz, 20-kilogrammes of Gold, prize money and a thoroughbred horse for breaking a world record in Rome, a local athlete was asked what he thought of his victory and reward.

He innocently replied that, while he appreciated the car, cash and gold, he wasn’t too sure about the horse.

“I wish the organisers gave me a cow… for the milk!”

At least Henry Rono is alive. Marathoner per excellence Samuel Wanjiru didn’t survive last week’s fall from a balcony which is now the subject of a police investigation.

Throw in infidelity, his vast estate estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of shillings, men claiming to his father and women swearing they were part of the harem, and fireworks are guaranteed.

Like many sportsmen worldwide, Kenyan athletes hold the sway as the highest earners when you take into consideration their pay from the many races they compete in abroad, endorsements and course records set.

This trend started way back in the 1990, when the athletics world turned from amateur to professional, giving rise to big stars. Wanjiru represented the peak segment of the highest earners in athletics.

Together with Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie and Usain Bolt of Jamaica, prior to boarding a plane to run abroad, his management would have been credited with Sh21 million ($250,000) in appearance fee, irrespective of which position he would finish the marathon.

Throw in the prize money for a race like Chicago Marathon which is at $150,000 (Sh12.5 million) add a course bonus of $100,000 (Sh8.3 million) and his pay in just two hours would be at $350,000 (Sh29 million).

Of course there would be endorsements and grants from sportswear giant Nike. Then there are the numerous half marathon and 10-kilometre road races that he took part in while preparing for the big city marathons.

Wanjiru ran seven marathon races in his career. He won five, lost one when he finished second to Martin Lel in London in 2008 and dropped out of one (London) in 2010.

The rest he won comfortable, which threw him to the crest of marathon running as he clinched the World Marathon Majors twice in a row in 2009 and 2010 earning him $1 million (Sh83 million in current exchange rates.)

This prize was awarded in New York and with it came the lure to invest in the New York City stocks, where he took an extensive tour and even was given the opportunity to ring the bell initiating trading at the market last year.

Such was Wanjiru’s stature. His story is just like that of American golf icon Tiger Woods, only that Wanjiru’s end was fatal.

From the journalists trailing him, to his many lovers and to the over protective mother (Anna Wanjiru) who endorsed, which girl the Olympic champion was to marry, the plot spans out from an athlete who emerged from grass to grace in six years.

The question then is why some of the worlds’ most iconic sportsmen hit the headlines, many times for all the wrong reasons?

The media frenzy does not reveal only Wanjiru’s conquest on the road race circuit. It has also attracted much wider interest and scrutiny of the sports sector.

In his death, Wanjiru has provided more questions than answers on how his multiple extra-marital affairs spiralled out of control.

He was a member of the Kenya Police Service, which he joined in 2008. President Mwai Kibaki had awarded him the Order of the Grand Warrior of Kenya (OGW) for his exemplary performance of duty.

So what was Samuel Wanjiru worth? Nobody has come out to state his worth.

It is said he owned a house in Ngong, two in Nyahururu and the last one in Nakuru. He is also said to have been involved in real estate. He had three commercial houses in Nakuru, owned a fleet of lorries, held shares in several local companies and was growing wheat large scale in Nakuru.

But its not all successful sports people go down the Wanjiru way.

Paul Tergat, a five-time world cross country champ, is wealthy but he doesn’t flaunt it. Tergat, a captain with the Kenya Air Force owns real estate, shares in Nairobi Stock Exchange, London and New York stock exchanges. A number of four star hotels in Nakuru and Naivasha and Baringo are said to be his.

Eldoret town is significantly owned by athletes. Moses Kiptanui a former world 3,000m steeplechase and now a coach is said to own many commercial houses in Eldoret as he has in London and Victoria, Canada.

Moses Tanui, a three time Boston Marathon champion owns a hotel and a school in Eldoret where he does dairy farming.