Former veteran athletics coach Mike Kosgei is not a happy man. Kosgei is unhappy that Kenya’s athletic prowess is slowly but surely dwindling and if measures to reclaim this dominance are not urgently put in place, then he has no doubt that the future is very bleak.
“I’m not happy with the direction our country is taking in athletics and especially in the events, where we used to dominate,” says Kosgei, adding that the style of management is to blame.
Kosgei, one of the country’s most experienced coaches, having led Kenya to several successful outings, is apprehensive of the ever-growing number of managers, whom he alleges neither pay proper attention to sport nor give it the seriousness it deserves, like in the past.
He observed that the ever-increasing number of athletes found guilty of using banned substances signifies a worrying trend attributable to lack of adequate supervisory guidelines by those responsible for safeguarding the integrity of the sport.
Kosgei, who spoke at his Kamurguiwo home in Nandi County, remembers with nostalgia how he headed Team Kenya to glory days in the 1980s.
He is a graduate of Washington State University, where he studied Sociology, and an alumnus of former athletics giant, St. Patricks High school, Iten. He also holds a post-graduate Diploma in athletics science and coaching at the University of Frankfurt-Germany.
Kosgei, however, says it’s not too late to correct the ‘mess brought about by foreign agents’.
“Kenya requires athletics academies to help identify runners and bring them to a central institution where they can be taught, trained and nurtured by professionals on various aspects of sports and values if the country is to succeed,” Kosgei says.
According to Kosgei, bringing up a successful athlete requires both physical and psychological guidance to ensure a runner understands each step of his/her career.
“Unlike in the past, athletics is now a profession where one has to be extremely disciplined to succeed and for your information, those who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law have some issues to do with discipline and ignorance,” Kosgei adds.
Kosgei observed that Kenya has a high potential of sprint runners, but, unfortunately, no one is interested in exploiting the existing talents because foreign agents are only interested in exploiting fields that likely to attract money.
As a result, he adds, young athletes are being pushed into distance race at an unacceptable tender age while no one in the athletics fraternity is interested in raising issues.
“One must be ready to take between seven to 10 years before getting sustainable results in the long distance but those who plunge into these competitions at an early stage only end up with regrets,” Kosgei says.
Kosgei wants the government, through the Ministry of Sports, to employ professional coaches who will be responsible for scouting and nurturing young talents and monitor their growth towards representing the country at the highest level.
The veteran coach warned that Kenya was losing out to Ethiopia and Uganda in events that ‘belong’ to Kenya.
“It is not in doubt that Uganda is emerging as a force to reckon with in athletics because of the seriousness their government is putting in the sport. Recent events that saw Uganda and Ethiopia relegate Kenya to underdogs is something the government must take a lot of interest in,” Kosgei asserted.
Kosgei, who led Kenya to claim cross country titles for over two decades, remembers vividly how Kenya found themselves in a similar situation in the mid-’80s until the country sort the help of the German government.
“Kenya was in the same situation in 1980-81 before bringing in coach Walter Abmyr from Germany to help prepare a team for the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane-Australia. We started reclaiming our position and it was evident at the Auckland cross-country championships in 1988, where we had a sweep, grabbing eight of the top 10 slots with Ethiopia coming in between at fifth,” Kosgei says.
He revealed that cross-country, road race and marathon running all depend on coach’s skills and tactics, aspects that Ethiopia and Ugandan teams have lately mastered.
“The runners must first be brought together in a camp for training, be taken through physical and psychological training to boost cohesiveness, which in the long run improves team work and winning mentality,” Kosgei explains.
He recalled how Team Kenya managed to beat Ethiopia legend, Haile Gebrselassie, at the 1994 World Cross Country Championships in Budapest-Hungary.
“I had prepared Paul Tergat and William Sigei to fully take care of Gebrselassie’s advances and it was all tactics. We managed to grab the title through the then little-known Sigei, who beat both pre-race favourites,” Kosgei remembers.
Kosgei, while comparing cross-country to a marathon, had a word of advice to young athletes keen on succeeding in the sport, telling them to study the gradual rise of world marathon record holder and Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge.
“He started with 1,500m and gradually rose to 3000m, then 5,000 and 10,000m before settling in the marathon. He’s a very disciplined athlete who has followed his training throughout… and that’s how he has succeeded,” Kosgei says.
He claimed that Kipchoge refused to be distracted by advances from unscrupulous agents and stuck with his coach, Patrick Sang, in addition to maintaining very high standards of discipline.
“Kipchoge should be a point of reference to any runner who wants to succeed and rise to the top in addition to making a living out of the sport,” he says.
He has a very tough warning to young runners. “Keep off-road races. Don’t be cheated or enticed by short term greed for money. You’ll burn out and no one will be interested in you,” he warns. He added it is this quest for quick money that is contributing to doping.
“Who will take care of the athletes in the absence of an academy and government facilitated coaches? Strangers will take over and mislead young learners,” he summed up.
Kosgei is currently engaged in dairy and tea farming but still coaches a number of athletes in Kapsabet.
“Once a coach always a coach. I train a number of runners for both middle and long distance races, giving them needed tactics to win and endurance,” he added.
Kosgei started his athletics career while at Kamobo Primary School before joining St. Patrick’s High School, Iten, one of the seedbeds of athletics in Kenya.
“I was a very good sprinter in 100m and 200m and then 400m, but as time went by, I realised that the future lay in 800m and that’s where my journey to Washington State University started,” he says.
He’s living with his children in a modest home, which he constructed while still active in coaching. He has trained in several foreign countries including Finland and Mozambique under IAAF and IOC.
