NAIROBI, April 12 (Xinhua) -- A retired Kenyan star athlete said on Thursday the country's firm grip in middle and long distance running is under threat, going by the results of the on-going Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.
Bernaba Korir who is director of youth development at Athletics Kenya, pointed out at neighboring Uganda as the country that poses the greatest threat to Kenya's iron clasp in distance track events.
"Irrespective of our performance in athletics in Gold Coast, we must return home knowing we have a major opponent just next door and it is no longer business as usual," Korir said.
"I am talking about Uganda who disoriented us in both men's 5,000m and women's 10,000m to take both gold medals through Joshua Cheptigei and Stella Chesang respectively," the former 10,000m runner said.
Kenya is yet to win a gold at the quadrennial games that it dominated in the past with pundits saying that the performance is a bad sign that the long distance field is slowly shrinking especially with the Ethiopians also quickly closing in.
The 5,000m and 10,000m women's events were thrown open after Vivian Cheruiyot, who dominated the races like the proverbial Colossus, retired from track running after over 15 years of top performance and settled for the marathon.
Korir said the situation is worsened by the high number of promising stars in long distance who are switching to marathon even before they settle on track.
"This is the time to start planning or rather grooming youngsters for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics if we are to stop the Ugandans. Just when we thought that Briton Mo Farah had paved way for us by shifting to road races, Ugandans have already staged a coup," he noted.
Korir said coaches must play a leading role not only in guiding the athletes, but also make them understand why track is the way to go before one ventures into marathon.
"Road racing was previously meant for athletes who had served on track and were headed into retirement. Nowadays we have boys and girls in their early 20s venturing into marathon. This is unacceptable!" said Korir.
He said Kenyan runners must take up from the likes of Paul Tergat, who is the President of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) and Eliud Kipchoge, both who had successful stints on track before moving to marathon.
