PARIS – When one thinks of Kenya and ‘athletics,’ which in the United States means ‘track and field,’ what comes to mind?
Kip Keino, of course, who in 1968 introduced the world beyond the Rift Valley to the possibilities of training at altitude, winning the 1500 meters and then, four years later in Munich, the 3000-meter steeplechase. (Two silvers at those two Games, too.)
Paul Tergat, first Kenyan to set the world record in the marathon and, more, silver medalist in the 10,000 on the track in Sydney 2000 in one of the most famous duels ever in Olympic history, won by nine-hundredths of a second by his great and good friend, Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia.
Eliud Kipchoge, arguably the greatest marathoner of all, twice Olympic champion and, as well, the first human being to run 26.2 miles under two hours, 1:59.4, five years ago in a paced event in Vienna.
When one thinks of Kenya, does one’s mind skip to – racewalk?
Samuel Gathimbi of Kenya after Thursday’s race: ‘I can say that I’m really proud to see how far racwalking has gotten me’
“I believe,” said 36-year-old Samuel Gathimba of Kenya, “I was born a walker.”
He also said, and he has a flair for any number of aptitudes, including expressing himself, “It’s a talent.”
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome anew to the amazing and, if you allow yourself to see it the way it can be, beautiful world of racewalk.
Truly, is there anything else like it in its hip-gyrating, staying-alive salute to the thing most all of us do every day?
Track and field doesn’t quite know what to do with race walk. That’s clear. There’s no more 50k – 30-mile – race. Instead, there is a 20k men’s and 20k women’s event; that’s 12 miles each for those who need help with the metric system. Each went down Thursday morning in a loop course under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. In a few days, there will be a mixed event, men and women.
For the first time since 1904, 120 years, there are no Americans in Olympic race walk, not even in the mixed event.
The rowdy crowd could hardly care. Americans who? Yankee Doodle went to town, just not this one, you know.
The authorities may not exactly know what to do with walk but here is the deal:
Track and field mostly means three things – run, jump, throw. Let us turn to the “run” part. As human beings, before we “run,” there is a progression. We crawl. Then we walk. Then we run.
Everyone knows this.
This is why racewalk is, has been, will be a thing.
There are lots of ways to move. Walk is the thing that able-bodied individuals – with full respect to the show the Paralympians will put on in a few weeks – do.
It is, because it is the way most of us move most elementally, therefore the most consequential translation — expression, if you will — of our hopes and our dreams.
This may explain why, on a hot and muggy Thursday morning, they were standing seven or eight deep at the turnaround point, at the corner of Avenue de la Bourdonnais and Quai Jacques Chirac.
Even after, for the record, the start of the races, men’s first, was postponed because it rained again in Paris, overnight, and a thunderstorm was still lingering about.
Hot and humid barely begin to describe conditions.
Even at 8 in the morning, when the men’s race started.
“It was a tough course,” said women’s bronze medalist Jemima Montag of Australia. “A one-kilometer loop with a dog leg in it, tight turns, cobblestones, noise, heat. So, it was a mental battle out there doing what needed to be done.”
China’s Jiayu Yang won the women’s race, in a season-best 1:25.54, Maria Perez of Spain – fourth in Tokyo – taking silver in 1:26.19, also a season best. Montag finished in 1:26.19.
The women’s field underway Thursday // World Athletics
Earlier, the men’s race // World Athletics
In the men’s race, Ecuador’s Brian Daniel Pintado took gold, in 1:18.55, Brazil’s Caio Bonfim silver, 14-hundredths back, Spain’s Alvaro Martin bronze, 16-hundredths behind.
Pintado’s medal made for Ecuador’s first at these Games. It also made for Ecuador’s second-ever medal in track and field. Jefferson Perez won the 20k race walk in 1996.
This was Pintado’s third Olympics. He was 37th in Rio, 12th in Tokyo. His time was but nine seconds off the Olympic record, 1:18.46, set by Chen Ding of China in London in 2012.
“I just want to go home,” Pintado said afterward. “I want my country to give me a house for my children and I don’t want anything more.”
Italy’s Massimo Stano, fourth, missed a medal by one-hundredth of a second: 17-hundredths behind.
Stano is the Tokyo winner.
He said after the race he hurt his foot 55 days ago – exactly 55. “It’s a fourth place that surely leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth just because of one-two seconds. But from another point of view,” he said, “I am extremely happy because being here is already a win for me.”
In last place, 46th: Hungary’s Bence Venyercsan.
He finished in 1:29:14, 10 seconds-plus after Pintado.
He felt no shame. None. Why should he?
People, he finished.
Six or seven mornings per week back home in Budapest, he is out on Margaret Island, which lies in the middle of the Danube, between Buda and Pest, training, on a five-kilometer course. Summer, fall, winter, spring.
Just so he could achieve this moment. He finished.
Hungary’s Bence Venyercsan, 46th Thursday in his third Olympics. He raced in Tokyo and in Rio in the men’s 50k racewalk, not on the program here in Paris: “Every four years you have to fight more, and harder.”
So that we all understand – when Bence Venyercsan is at top speed, he is doing a kilometer in four minutes and five seconds. That’s a 6:34 mile. You try to walk a mile in 6:34. One foot on the ground, per the rules, at all times.
“I’m happy that I’m here,” he said afterward. “I’m a little disappointed in myself because I know I can walk better than this time,” meaning 1:29-ish. “And, yeah, it’s really a mix.”
Which brings us back to Samuel Gathimba.
For reference, the man finished fourth in the 20k racewalk at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
And ninth at last year’s worlds in Budapest.
He is a four-time African champion – 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022 – and runner-up this year.
So, like, 22nd at the Olympics?
OK, but in Rio in 2016, his prior Olympic experience, he did not finish, the dreaded ‘DNF.’ He blamed it on “excitement.”
So, 22nd – that’s an upgrade.
With Samuel Gathimba, life tends to be a cabaret.
He sings, at his church. As he said in a 2023 interview with a Kenyan paper, “Prior to race-walking, I was in the entertainment industry and I used to dance for money.”
Samuel Gathimba is the youngest in a family of three boys and three girls. When he was a boy, he had chores – feeding cows and tending to the family’s tea plantation.
After high school, he had a hard time finding work. For five years, he did almost anything. He dug latrines. He trimmed fences. He trimmed tea leaves. Finally, he said – race walking.
Almost all of us, as he said, are born walkers.
For him, it was more.
A calling.
After Rio, he thought, redemption in Tokyo. But Kenya could not send him – COVID meant there weren’t qualifying opportunities.
Now, he and his wife, Winfred Wangeci, have two children. He is both a race walker and a prison guard.
He said after Thursday’s race, a towel draped over his head, “A lot of people where I come from used to think I am crazy.
“They also used to think I am really lazy and didn’t like to work. Like, I didn’t like to work in the farms and that’s why, you know, they thought I was pretending to be training.
“You know, that fueled me. Keeps on fueling me. It has been my fuel. That is why I’m here. I’m proud. And I’m so glad I have followed my heart.
“I have always,” and if nothing else this is the 100% percent truth about everyone in and everything about racewalking, “followed my heart.”