Kenya: Marakwet, Where Steeplechase Starts

With the track season beckoning, Kenyans will be looking up for a podium sweep in the water and barriers race, the 3,000 metres steeplechase, in the World Championships in Daegu Korea, later this year.

Having dominated the global charts for nearly two decades and still producing top steeplechasers, a sleepy area in the hilly Marakwet District will most likely be celebrating more victories as the international season looms with the Diamond League going into the World Championships.

Kamoi and Chesubet primary schools, which are in the heart of the district and within a five-kilometre radius of each other, are the cradle of elite steeplechase in the world.

The schools boasts a high collection of Olympic, World, Commonwealth and Africa 3,000m steeplechase champions in the history of the race.

Former world record holder and three-time world champion Moses Kiptanui is a leading star from the Chesubet factory. Reuben Kosgei, Brimin Kipruto and Ezekiel Kemboi, whose careers started at Chesubet, are among the few athletes who have won the Olympic games and world championships steeplechase titles.

In their early days, Kiptanui and Kenyan-turned-Qatari Saif Saaeed Shaheen of Qatar - formerly Stephen Cherono - improvised with desks and twigs as hurdles

Shaheen attended Marakwet Boys High School before he went to Brussels in 2004 and posted the 7:53.63 time.

World and Olympic champion Brimin Kipruto and former Olympic champion Ezekiel Kemboi, All Africa record holder Ruth Bosibori and Kenya's first World Junior champion Gladys Kemboi were in Kenya's team to the 2009 Berlin world championships.

Steeplechase coach Boniface Tiren, who has trained most of the runners in Kapcherop Athletics Club, says the terrain and the high altitude have been quite helpful.

"We have been recruiting steeplechasers' right from the grassroots level during December holidays. And since steeplechase is a technical event, we found it wise to utilise the privileges within us that favour the race and ensure our athletes scale the heights of fame," Tiren told the Monday Sport last Thursday at Chesubet Primary School in Marakwet.

 Allafrica News