by Larry EderDavid Rudisha had a remarkable year in 2012. Here, Justin Lagat, our correspondent in Kenya, wrote a piece about Rudisha’s recent eight awards in a two week period!
RUDISHA PACKS 8 BIG AWARDS IN TWO WEEKS:
Right now, one man must be having a hard time trying to re-arrange his living room after collecting so many more trophies in the past few days.
On 24th Nov this year, David Rudisha won the Performance of the Year Award at the IAAF awards in Barcelona. Less than a week later, he won four other titles at the Athletics Kenya (AK) Gala Night in Nairobi, namely: Athlete of the Year, Sportsman of the Year, Olympic Gold Medalist and Middle Distance athlete of the Year awards. A week again after that, he also won two titles as Sports Person of the Year and Sportsman of the Year at the annual SOYA (Sports Personality of the Year Awards), founded by legendary Paul Tergat and sponsored by the Safaricom Foundation. And even though I do not have any connections with anyone in the Safaricom company, I will never get tired of mentioning that it is one company that has won my heart by its dedication to working with athletes here in Kenya by sponsoring a number of running events across the country, and by handsomely rewarding the Olympic medalists when they came back from London, as though the athletes had gone there to represent Safaricom itself, and not the Kenyan nation.
Compared with his 2010 overall title of IAAF Athlete of the Year Award and the two world records he set that year, then also with the world championship title he won last year in the 800m event, this year appears to be the best for Rudisha. It may even have been a more successful one if Usain Bolt of Jamaica had not done a little more than him and taken the overall title.
But, everyone will agree with me that both athletes were spectacular this year, and it may not have been easy for the judges to pick the winner after they both made it to the final list of three, including Aries Merritt.Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya had won an identical title to his at the IAAF awards last year after winning the world cross country title and two gold medals at the World Championships in Daegu. Surprisingly, she had also won the Athletics Kenya’s Athlete of the Year and the SOYA Sports Personality of the Year awards. One could wonder whether another Kenyan will not follow suit next year and pack the exact same awards. Or, will Rudisha and Vivian still come back for them?
For now, Rudisha does not plan on competing again until sometime in March next year. He told this to journalists after the SOYA awards ceremony at the Carnivore Grounds in Nairobi.
Having won the highly coveted IAAF Athlete of the Year Award in 2010, the Performance of the Year award this year, Olympic and World Gold medals and breaking world records a number of times, it now looks as though there is nothing fancier for this amazing athlete left and yet to be achieved in his running career. But he says he is not yet done. He still hopes to lower his record to under 1:40:00 next year, probably at the Word Championships in Moscow. Besides that, he also wants to be a multiple World champion and also hopefully defend his title in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Looking at his progressive records from 2006, where he had run a time of 1:46:30, he seems to have been improving by an average of a second each year, excepting only in last year where he failed to advance his improvement by about a third of a second. For the last six years, he has improved by six seconds to end at 1:40:91. Will he cut another second next year?
Rudisha, who is a Christian, did not forget to credit his successes this year to His creator, of whom he believes that without His help, he would not have succeeded as much. He also thanked his long time coach and mentor, Brother Colm O’Connel, who has been working with him since 2004. Before working with him, Colm had been coaching the former record holder of the event, Wilson Kipketer, of Denmark and after him, Rudisha has broken the former’s record. I cannot help but wonder whether the Irish Catholic Father will mould another champion to come and break Rudisha’s world record again!
For now, the Maasai Moran continues to bask in glory until such a time when another warrior will come and take it from him.
