A group of three Kenyan athletes who went to the United States of America on scholarship programme and spent years in Arizona, while also competing at the high level globally, are eager to treat the world to awe-inspiring performances at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
The 2022 New York City Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi, 1,500 metres specialist Susan Ejore, and 5,000m Edwin Kurgat have been refining their skills in Kenya and the USA over the past two years.
They are all based in the US and have been training under one programme at Flagstaff City in Arizona, and they all qualified to represent Kenya at the Olympics through a competitive process.
Ejore, 28, joined New York-based Monroe College in 2016 to pursue a bachelors degree in psychology, but later transferred to Oregon State University, where she graduated in 2020.
Lokedi, 30, went to the US in 2015 upon graduating from Kapkenda Girls High School in Elgeyo Marakwet County, where she regularly competed in long distance races.
Lokedi joined University of Kansas and pursued a bachelors degree in Business Logistics and Supply Chain, graduating in 2019. She then joined Under Armour Running Company, where she has remained to date.
Kurgat will compete in the first round of men’s 5,000m on Friday, followed by the semi-finals on August 4 and the final on August 6.
The 28-year-old Kurgat attained Olympics qualification standard in January at the Boston University John Thomas Terrier Classic in USA, clocking 12 minutes and 57.52 seconds.
He competeed at the Kenyan trials and finished third behind the 2014 Commonwealth Games 1,500m silver medalist Ronald Kwemoi and the 2022 world silver medalist Jacob Krop. He will compete for Kenya in men’s 5,000m race alongside Kwemoi and Krop in Paris.
Since the 5,000m race became part of the Olympics at the 1912 edition in Stockholm, Kenya did not win gold untill at the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea where John Ngugi won gold medal ahead of Dieter Bauman from West Germany, and Hansjörg Kunze from East Germany.
Paul Bitok would later claim silver medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games, before again taking silver at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Eliud Kipchoge claimed bronze medal, and took silver medal at the 2008 Beijing ahead of his compatriot Edwin Soi who took bronze.
The last Olympics medal Kenya won in the race was a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics through Thomas Longosiwa. Kenya has left the past two editions of the Olympics empty-handed, and Kurgat is determined to change this.
The alumnus of St Patrick’s High School,Iten, in Elgeyo Marakwet, started out as a hockey player, but his sister Caroline, who was at the time a student at the University of Alaska Anchorage, asked him to try athletics after Form Four.
“I used to play hockey in secondary school, and I didn’t know that I could even run professionally until my sister encouraged me to start training with a view to getting a scholarship in the USA, and I’m glad I made the right decision because I managed to join college in 2016,” Kurgat, who trains under coach Stephen Haas in the USA, told Nation Sport last week at the High Performance Training Centre in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County.
He joined University of Tennessee in 2016, then transfered to Iowa State University in 2018 and graduated with a degree in Industrial Engineering in 2021. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in Engineering Management at the same university.
He believes that with good team work, Kenya can win gold medal in the men’s 1,500m, which has eluded the country since 1988.
“We need to work on our finishing kick because this is what has let us down in the past,” he said.
“Two weeks ago, I competed at the London Diamond League in the 3,000m race and finished third in a personal best time of 7:28.53, and I feel confident because I registered remarkable improvement in performance,” he said.
Kurgat has spent sleepless nights with his team mates trying to figure out the best strategy to employ in Paris, and everything has boiled down to team work.
“The race is really competitive and people are running crazy times at the moment. Since Kenya is known for middle and long distance running, we must live up to that reputation in Paris.
“We have Kwemoi who is already an Olympian and he knows what to do. With his experience in the 1,500m, he comes into the 5,000m race with good speed which is key in the final part of the race.”
