Joshua Cheptegei Kiprui is an all time great.You have seen the graphic by now.10,000m Gold at the ongoing Paris Olympics.5000m Gold and 10,000m Silver at the Tokyo edition three years ago.Three World Championships Golds and one Silver.Olympic and World Records in both distances.The craziest part of it all is that that is not exhaustive.
The man also boasts a Diamond League title,two Commonwealth Games Golds,one World Junior Championships Gold,in addition to two Golds and one Bronze at the World Cross Country Championships.His achievements so far already put him in the same conversations as Farah,Bekele and Gebrselassie.
The Debacle of Kololo
Narratively,Cheptegei’s story is borderline scripted,with him being that precocious wonderkid who goes ahead to fulfill his potential.But the reality was never that straightforward.He burst onto the scene as a 17 year old,storming to Gold at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Eugene,USA.
This came only a year after Stephen Kiprotich added Marathon Gold at the World Championships to Olympic Gold at London 2012.With Kiprotich on his way out,the stage was set for Cheptegei to be Uganda’s next great athletics hope.
And then disaster struck.The year was 2017.The venue Kololo Airstrip.The event was the IAAF Cross Country Championships.His debut in the competition.On home soil.A 20 year old upstart hoping to end Kenyan dominance of the 10km race,he led until the final moments.And then he suddenly ran out of gas and staggered to finish a distant 30th.
The Aftermath
Cue widespread derision and mockery.His anguished posture as he laboured to the finish line drew hyperbolic descriptions of him running backwards,with conspiracy theorists opining that Cheptegei had been sabotaged by witchcraft.Others even claimed he had flopped on purpose to embarrass President Museveni,who was in the crowd that day.
In reality,the young runner just didn’t (yet) have the experience,maturity and tactical nous to successfully navigate the final moments of the race.And he paid for it dearly.The chatter that followed could have broken a weaker man,but Cheptegei is,as they say these days,built different.He would bounce back to win the same race two years later in Aarhus,Denmark.
Ultimately,his collapse in Kololo had not denied his greatness,but merely delayed it.That is not to say it didn’t sting.Like any other person would be,Cheptegei was hurt by the rejection and ridicule from the same people he had represented,and would continue to represent,so proudly.
A 2020 interview saw Cheptegei say “The Ugandans and media houses that mocked me and made fun of me,I wanted to prove to you I’m strong and I’m the best in the world.You don’t deserve me in actual sense.I thank God for giving me the confidence to keep going and becoming better.”.Talk about a chip on the shoulder.
Nurtured by failure
He refused to let that setback define him and instead used it as motivation to achieve all his dreams.He had the intelligence to view it in terms of the bigger picture,and use it to become better,rather than let it demoralise him.To this day,he credits it for making him a better athlete.
To quote Cheptegei himself on the eve of the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Bathurst last year;“I can proudly say that I am a better athlete because of the incident in 2017. It taught me a lot of lessons about my life and my career.When you want something in life, it’s important to chase your goals,but you also have to be patient and make certain judgements.”
Nowadays the man from Kapchorwa is reknown for his race management,with his barnstorming late push for 10,000m Gold in Paris the latest exhibition of that side of his game.But,in many ways,it all began with the debacle of Kololo.It was a truly make or break moment,and Cheptegei’s resilience ensured it would be the former.
