Meet Joshua Cheptegei, the track  king we don’t know how to bow to

Moses Banturaki

Joshua Cheptegei. Remember that name. He is Uganda’s king of long distance running and he has the world at his feet.
There were others before him like Moses Kipsiro and Boniface Kiprop who between them have four Commonwealth golds and the great Stephen Kiprotich who has an Olympic Gold. 

And then there are those beside him like teenage sensation Jacob Kiplimo who can be one half of a deadly middle-distance duo that dominates for a decade. Still, he is a class apart.

His career projection reads like a track and road-race domination mission. He is four-time winner of the Zevenheuvekenloop 15km race in Nijmegen Netherlands, collecting the world record along the way which he dropped by 8 seconds by the way! 

He also holds the 5km world record which he took in Monaco earlier this year. And he alongside teenage sensation Jacob Kiplimo, anchored the Uganda team that won the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus Denmark last year.

Added to this is the 2019 World Championship Gold he harvested in Doha last year and before that, the Commonwealth gold at both the 5,000 and 10,000m. Only an Olympic Gold eludes him, something many believe was a foregone conclusion had the coronavirus crisis not brought about the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic. He certainly will have something to say about that next year.

But in the meantime, and if the Kenyans still wore a smirk on their collective face, he wiped it off last month when he broke Kenenisa Bekele’s old 5000m World record. 

I watched that Bekele race 16 years ago and I remember saying then that Bekele was an alien. I also watched last months’ race and I have run out of superlatives to describe what Cheptegei did. Let me just say I will not bet against him dropping that time further.
 
But before that he has recently announced that next month, he is going for another Kenenisa Bekele record – the 10000m world record.
 
The man is relentless. Few are betting against him, least of all Kenenisa Bekele who must sometimes wonder what could have been had Cheptegei been around 15 years ago.

Anyway, those who know him say it wouldn’t even be a surprise if he demolished the 10,000m record. And maybe we should listen to them. He is that special.

The Arabs know this, and they are circling. It won’t be the first time either. Around 2017, we learnt that he shooed away some Rich Arabs who wanted his citizenship in return for $500,000. 

It could have changed his life because it is way beyond the average career earnings of an elite Ugandan athlete and especially because it comes before, and not after he races. 

But maybe he thought it wasn’t for him to be attached to a different flag for the money. Maybe he is patriotic. Maybe he loves the hills of Kapchorwa and wont switch them for anything. In the meantime, he will race and beat everyone and earn form it as well. What a blessing he is.

He is a source of national pride who opted to stay and continue to represent us. But if only we could return the love as a nation.

 We can start off by doing stuff that don’t make him not regret his decision not to auction his labour to the highest bidder. The least we can do is build him a proper high-altitude training centre back home. Plus, the dinners and pick-up trucks are good but can Uganda Revenue Authority steer clear of his prize money? Would that be a lot to ask for? 

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Twitter: @MBanturaki