Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - (IAAF) -
By Steve Landells
Uganda’s Commonwealth 10,000m champion Boniface Kiprop hopes 2009 will finally be the year he climbs a major championship medal podium on the global senior stage after a series of finishes in that most unwelcome and cruel fourth position.
The 23-year-old finished in the ‘bogey’ position at both the 2004 Olympic Games and 2005 World Championships in the gruelling 25-lap endurance test and also wound up fourth at the 2003 All Africa Games.
Kiprop did strike gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, but the past couple of seasons have proved a frustrating experience as he was badly hampered by a long-standing hip problem.
So much so that he has drifted from medal contender into midfield also ran on the big stage, finishing tenth in the 10,000m final at both the 2007 World Championships in Osaka and last summer’s Beijing Olympics.
Yet the early signs are promising that 2009 could signal a return to his best. He finished second in his seasonal opener at the IAAF Permit Cross Country meeting race in Antrim, Northern Ireland last weekend – two seconds behind Ethiopian Imane Merga – and many pundits believed had he not conceded at least 50m to the eventual winner on the penultimate lap, after his shoe became dislodged in the mud, he would have surely won.
Indeed, the modest Kiprop - whose name means born when it is raining in his native tongue - is confident he has put behind him the disappointment of 2007 and 2008.
“The last two seasons (have) not quite (gone) as well as I would have hoped,” said Kiprop. “I had a hip injury last season, which started in 2007. “Now I think I’m okay for this year. I have no pain. In the Olympic Games I was not feeling very well because of the problem (injury). I was trying to run to run my best for Uganda, my country.”
Atlanta inspiration
Born one of three brothers and three sisters in a farming community just 15km from the Kenyan border in the Mount Elgon region, Kiprop’s first memories of running came as a 10-year-old boy listening to the 1996 Atlanta Games.
He recalls listening to the 10,000m battle for gold between Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia and Kenya’s Paul Tergat and quickly adopted the latter as his favourite athlete.
The Ugandan, however, first recognised he had a gift for running when he was about 12-years-old when his mum sent him on errands and he always completed the task in super quick time.
By the age of 15 he was regularly winning school races and with his brother - Martin Toroitich - landing the African Junior 5000m title in 2001 he quickly realised life as an international performer was an achievable goal.
Kiprop starred as a junior of rich promise landing successive silver medals in the junior race at the World Cross Country Championships in 2003 and 2004 and won the 2004 World Junior 10,000m title in Grosseto. Just one month later he finished fourth place at the Athens Olympics.
The 2005 season proved Kiprop’s best to date as he set a stunning new national 10,000 record of 26:39.77 - a time which today stands 12th on the all-time lists - to finish second behind Kenenisa Bekele’s World record run.
Yet Kiprop is not satisfied with his accomplishments in the 25-lap race and believes there is more to come.
“I think (I could have run) 26:30 when I ran that (26:39). I thought I can run harder than that. (To achieve that) I just need to be free of injury, to eat well and train hard.”
Emerging Ugandan strength
Kiprop is one of a number of Ugandan athletes making their mark felt at the head of world endurance running. He trains alongside his brother, who finished 10th in the 2007 World Cross Country Championships and his best friend Moses Kipsiro, the fourth-placer in the 5000m at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Indeed, Kiprop is confident the relatively recent distance running success of the Ugandans can be maintained and he added: “Uganda did not discover Mount Elgon athletes could run like Kenyan athletes (until recently). The federation now supports these athletes.”
He now plans to compete at the Great Edinburgh Cross Country International on Saturday before returning to Uganda to prepare for the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Amman, Jordan in March.
Kiprop’s main target of the year will be the 10,000m at the World Championships in Berlin.
But can he finally win a medal on the global stage?
“Yes, I try to win a medal,” added the modest Kiprop, a medal which surely no-one would begrudge the ever-smiling Ugandan.
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