Where poverty propels athletes

• Youngsters train daily as early as 6 a.m. in hopes of one day catching the eye of a sponsor

Temperatures in Nyahururu can dip to as low as 10 degrees at night and, as the sun’s first rays shine on the town near the western tip of the Aberdares, a group of young men shuffles towards the local sports stadium.

They show up as early as 6 a.m. in the hope that hard work at the training ground will eventually help them achieve the glory – and the riches – that come with winning races in Europe.

Yet, as the tragic events of last Sunday night when Samuel Wanjiru, the most famous graduate of this academy, plunged to his death illustrate, these poor teenagers are ill-prepared for the fame and fortune they struggle so hard to attain.

There is a very thin line between the utter poverty into which they are born and the hundreds of millions of shillings that could come with success on the track.

“They are poor. Their parents cannot raise even Sh500 or Sh1,000 when they present an athlete for training,” said Robert Kioni, a retired soldier who set up a training camp for athletes in 1971 and became a coach in 1975.

Mr Kioni was Samuel Wanjiru’s coach until 2009 and is an old friend of the family. Wanjiru’s mother and grandfather asked him to take the marathon prospect under his wing in 1998.

Solomon Wachira, another coach and retired athlete who handled Wanjiru for a short time, told the Sunday Nation times are often hard for the athletes who almost always come from poor backgrounds.

And that’s where the foreign coaches and the sponsorship packages to run for Japanese companies such as Toyota and the electronics company NEC come in.

Those who are deemed talented enough are offered the scholarships that enable them to undergo training and education up to secondary level. In return, they act as brand ambassadors for the firms.

“You will not be paid for running, but the companies will sponsor you to enter a race. The only requirement will be that you wear a bib bearing the company’s name during races. It is good advertising for them,” Mr Wachira said.

According to Mr Kioni, the youngsters are also given a “disturbance allowance” of about Sh42,000 per month and three plane tickets; two for the return journey and an extra one for emergencies.

Double amount

Mr Wachira said the athletes are paid up to 600,000 yen (about Sh600,000 at current rates). The amount could double if a runner wins a race and gets a bonus.

Samuel Wanjiru, the man who would later become a legend in the town and famous for picking up huge bills at bars and the many flashy vehicles he drove, started his professional life this way.

He was snapped up before accepting admission to Irigithathi secondary school in Ndaragwa near Nyahururu and taken to Japan.

“I got the chance for him to go to Japan when an international secondary school and Japan wanted students from Kenya on scholarship,” Mr Kioni said.

Mr Wachira said the sudden change in fortune can overwhelm any young man from the slopes of the Aberdares – as he once was – bringing with it stories that would sound improbable.

Nothing prepares the athletes for the change in fortunes.