Comeback kid Kiprop has eye on China assignments

Boniface Kiprop is on the comeback trail! The 29-year-old featured in yesterday’s Na-tional Cross Country Championships in the eastern town of Jinja just when many had thought his career was teetering on the edge of the precipice. A two-year spell of inertia seemed to have taken the tape, with Kiprop reaching the end of his tether. It was hard to believe that Kiprop was widely considered a distance running hotshot as recent as just after the turn of the second millennium.
It was back at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, that Kiprop, then 18 go-ing on to 19, dared to take his place at distance running’s high table. This after he placed fourth in the 10,000 metres final just behind the legendary figures of Kenenisa Bekele, Sileshi Sihine and Zersenay Tadese. If that didn’t make for fascinating reading, then the footnote detailing how Kiprop relegated Haile Gebrselassie must have!
Gebrselassie might have been in the autumn of his career, but it wasn’t every day that a teenager outfoxed him after an absorbing rope-a-dope. Kiprop, though, was no ordinary teenager. He was quite something special. Kiprop had shown his specialness with a majestic run in the 10,000 metres final of the 2004 World Junior Championships. That memorable run in the Italian city of Grosseto yielded gold and a world junior record.
Grosseto is situated in the Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the place that Kiprop’s coach, Giuseppe Giambrone, calls home. With an elevation of just 30 feet, it is far from being a tectonic marvel in the shape of Iten. This didn’t stop Giambrone from setting up the Tuscany Training Camp project that counted Kiprop and his elder brother, Martin Toroitich, as its prize possessions.
Back in 2004, Kiprop was the very embodiment of a prize possession. He also had a stellar 2005, missing out on the a podium position at the World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Finland, by a whisker (the odd two seconds, to be precise). Bekele, Sihine and Moses Mosop (in that order) finished ahead of Kiprop at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium.
The head didn’t droop after that all too familiar near miss. Kiprop was still a teenager. His best days were ahead; not behind him. Indeed, Kiprop won a gold medal after bossing the 10,000 metres final of the 2006 Commonwealth Games Down Under.
Things, however, fell apart in 2007. The warning bells were sounded at the All-Africa Games where Kiprop could only come in fifth during the 10,000 metres final. It got worse at the 2007 World Athletics Championships in Osaka, Japan, when Bekele lapped Kiprop in the 10,000 metres final. Kiprop placed 10th in that final, and was never the same again.
It looked like his athletics career had been buried in the Land of the Rising Sun. Dis-tance running is all about showing a sheer force of will. Kiprop’s mental and physical fortitude, though, appeared to have been tested to its limits. He retired prematurely on account of a muscle injury that he said wouldn’t allow him to show any dogged determination.
The injury has since been subjugated. Kiprop says he will be featuring in road races this year. Yesterday in Jinja he was hoping to do enough to qualify to be part of the team that will represent Uganda at the World Cross Country Championships in Guiyang, China. He’s also keen on representing Uganda in the marathon at the World Athletics Championships in Beijing, China.