November 3, 2024

Top 10 Kenyan Men Athletes of All Time

1. Eliud Kipchoge

A list of Kenya’s best 10 athletes wouldn’t be complete without including Eliud Kipchoge. Eliud is an Olympic marathon winner in the long-distance running competitions in 2016 and 2020.

 In the 2018 Berlin Marathon, he finished in 2:01:39, setting a new world record. He is now the greatest sportsman and marathon runner in history thanks to his incredible performance.

It is well known that Eliud Kipchoge accepted and triumphed over the Nike-organized Ineos 1:59 Challenge. On October 12, 2019, in Vienna, Austria, Eliud Kipchoge broke the two-hour mark for the marathon distance while being observed by people worldwide.

 Eliud showed that it is feasible to complete the marathon in under two hours, despite the lack of open competition and the performance not being recognized as a world record. 2. David Lekuta Rudisha

2. David lekuta Rudisha

The men’s 800-meter world record is held by David Lekuta Rudisha. During the London 2012 Olympic Games, he broke the record. Rudisha broke the 1:41 mark here, becoming the first athlete to do so.

 He still has one of the best performances in sports history. Nevertheless, Rudisha’s rise to prominence started in 2010 when he twice smashed the world record for 800 meters. He got the moniker “Pride of Africa” because of his elegant running technique and big strides.

In 2013, Rudisha was jogging about Central when he tripped and damaged his knee. Little did he know that he would never fully recover his running ability.

 Rudisha began running but was unable to win any medals after a series of examinations, surgeries, and therapy sessions. 

3. Paul Kibii Tergat

One of the seasoned Kenyan athletes who helped bring international respect to the country’s flag is Paul Tergat. He used to be a long-distance runner and has some impressive feats under his belt. 

Tergat won the IAAF World Cross Country Championship five times in a row from 1995 to 1999. IAAF had not yet introduced short courses at that point.

 His other noteworthy victories included five wins at the Saint Silvester Road Race and a Latin American street racing championship. He became a star in Brazil after his victory.

Paul Tergat faced fierce competition from his friend, the Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, at that period. In both the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Haile Gebrselassie defeated Tergat by very narrow margins.

 By the year 2000, the winning margin was as little as nine-hundredths of a second. Nevertheless, in the 10,000-meter class, the two legendary athletes would set, break, and reset each other’s world records. 

4. Ezekiel Kemboi Chebii

Ezekiel Kemboi gained international recognition during the 2004 Summer Olympics after winning the gold in the 3000-meter steeplechase. In the World Championships in 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, and the 2012 Summer Olympics, Kembo would replicate his performance.

 There are just three other athletes who have ever won gold in both an Olympic and a World competition. Furthermore, he is still the only sportsman to have won four world titles in the steeplechase for three thousand meters. Furthermore, Kemboi ranks sixth among all athletes with a personal best time of 7:55.76 set in 2011 in Monaco.

Saif Saeed Shaheen (previously Stephen Cherono) was a fierce rival of Kemboi early in his career. Shaheen won the 2003 World Championships by a little second over Kemboi. Stephen Cherono became a Qatari national after converting from Kenyan. 

5. Kipchoge Hezekiah Keino

Another accomplished Kenyan athlete and inspiration is Kipchoge Keino. He established a fantastic winning legacy for distance runners in Kenya. Notably, Keino had a gallbladder infection and still won gold and silver at the 1968 Olympics.

 After their bus got stopped in traffic, he jogged a mile from the Olympic Village to the venue. At the Munich Olympics in 1972, Kipchoge took home a gold medal in the 3000 meters steeplechase. A year later, he gave up on track.

Famously, Kip Keino trained at an elevation of 1,800 meters above sea level. By using this high-altitude training method, he was able to adjust to the real weather in the nations where he would eventually participate. It also guaranteed that he was ready to compete at any height. 

6. Samuel Kamau Wanjiru

Kenyan long-distance runner Samuel Wanjiru, who passed away recently, improved his running abilities after moving to Sendai, Japan. In his native Kenya, he had won a school cross-country event. Major cross-country champion Wanjiru shined, setting a junior record in the Van Damme Memorial 10,000-meter track event. 

Wanjiru became the first Kenyan to win a gold medal in the marathon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In 1932, he also became the youngest gold medallist, at the age of just eighteen. 

Among his other noteworthy victories are the marathons in Chicago and London in 2009. Nevertheless, Wanjiru’s knee issue forced him to miss events the next year.

In 2010, despite his ongoing knee issues, Wanjiru was taken into custody from his Kenyan residence for unlawfully possessing an AK-47 automatic rifle and purportedly making threats to murder his spouse.

 Wanjiru committed suicide by jumping off the balcony of his Kenyan house in May of the subsequent year. It seems that he committed suicide when his spouse caught him having an affair. 

7. Moses Mosop

Moses Mosop has one bronze medal from the World Championships, two gold medals from the World Cross Country, one silver medal from the World Cross Country, one Olympic Games finalist, and one finalist from the World Championships.

 When he qualified for the 2002 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Belfast, he made his competitive running debut. After that, he will practice with Italian coach Renato Canova, who is currently his international coach.

Mosop claims to have won a half-marathon in 2008, 2009, and 2010. In 2003, he also won the 5000 meters twice. 

8. Stanley Kipleting Biwott

Long-distance runner Stanley Biwott holds the world record for the 30-kilometer road race. He also ran entire marathons, setting a record at the 2010 São Paulo International Marathon with a time of 2:11:19, the quickest ever on South American land. In the 2016 London Marathon, he set a personal best time of 2:03:51, which was his greatest result in a complete marathon.

In the Roma-Ostia Half Marathon, Biwott worked as a pacemaker to start his athletic career. Here he improved it from 1:01:20 to 1:00:23, his personal best for the half marathon. Later, in 2013 in Ras Al Khaimah (UAE), Biwott achieved his shortest personal best of 58:56. 

9. Dennis Kipruto Kimetto

Long-distance runner Dennis Kipruto Kimetto previously held the world record for men’s marathons, which he achieved in Berlin in 2014 with a time of 2:02:57. In 2018, Eliud Kipchoge broke the record with a run of 2:01:39, ending his reign as the champion. 

Kimetto was raised in a Kenyan village called Kapngetuny. With seven children, his father was a subsistence farmer who found it difficult to support his family.

 Kimetto was consequently forced to work on farms rather than go to school. He would frequently watch Paul Tergat compete against Haile Gebrselassie on television. This is where Kimetto got her competitive spirit started.

Kimetto’s age was once incorrectly stated to be ten years younger. His personal best time of 59:14 in Berlin had thus been mistakenly regarded as the world junior best time. The problem was fixed in the competitions that followed. 

10. Leonard Patrick Komon

Leonard Patrick Komon holds the world records for the men’s 10 and 15-kilometer road events. He is a two-time silver medallist at the World Cross Country Championships. His humble beginnings included dropping out of high school because of unpaid tuition. 

Furthermore, he was motivated to pursue competitive running after hearing about the accomplishments of other world record breakers on the radio, like Tegla Loroupe, Paul Tergat, and Vivian Cheruiyot.

In the 10-kilometer UAE Healthy Kidney event in 2011, Komon broke the world record. His time was 27:35. Because of its proximity to the New York Mini 10K women’s race, elite female runners are not invited to this event.

Top 10 Kenyan Men Athletes of All Time