Wanyonyi pioneering a dazzling route to Paris 2024
Reading Time: 3min | Fri. 12.01.24. | 14:42
"The world record may come in a few more years, but I am still young.”
At just 19, Emmanuel Wanyonyi has a world U20 title and a senior World Championships silver medal at 800m, and he finished his season by winning the Diamond League title with a world-leading PB of 1:42.80.
His sights are now set on this year’s Olympics.
Speaking in Monaco, where he received the men’s Rising Star award for 2023, Wanyonyi explained that he has had a long journey to the top of the world in a career dominated by runners from Rift Valley as opposed to Western Kenya.
His talent as a runner was recognised and he soon began training under the direction of Janeth Jepkosgei, the 2007 world 800m champion and 2008 Olympic silver medalist who was by then working as a youth coach.
Soon he was linked up with her former coach, the Kenyan-based Italian Claudio Berardelli, who runs the 2 Running Club at Kapsabet.
Wanyonyi came to wider notice by winning the world U20 title in Nairobi in 2021, aged 17, in a championship record of 1:43.76. The Olympic title was won later that summer by his compatriot Emmanuel Korir in 1:45:06.
Rather than defending his world U20 title in Cali, Wanyonyi decided to raise his sights.
“After that, I decided to go to senior level as maybe I could earn something good,” he said.
In 2022 he missed a medal at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon by just one place.
This year he has built methodically upon that experience. His Wanda Diamond League season saw him win in Rabat and then Paris- setting a world-leading PB of 1:43.27 at the latter meeting.
At the World Championships in Budapest, he came up once more against the Canadian who had earned bronze in Oregon the year before, Marco Arop.
Before the final, Kenya’s double Olympic champion and world record-holder David Rudisha, present in the Hungarian capital as an event ambassador, advised Wanyonyi on tactics.
The Canadian got there when it mattered, however, claiming gold in 1:44.24. Wanyonyi, despite his initial puzzlement, was not far behind, taking silver in 1:44.53. It was a huge achievement for a 19-year-old. But soon enough Wanyonyi was working on how to beat the world champion.
At the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Xiamen on 2 September, running from the front with full permission this time from his coach, he did so, clocking another world lead of 1:43.20, with Arop second in a personal best of 1:43.24.
At the Wanda Diamond League final in Eugene later in September, the two rivals excelled themselves and the result was the same, with Wanyonyi winning in a world-leading PB of 1:42.80 and Arop setting a Canadian record of 1:42.85 in second place.
“I like to run,” Wanyonyi said. “I like to compete. I like running against Arop. He is my friend, and he makes me train hard for our competitions. That’s why I need to keep my discipline for next year, for the Olympics.
“My target next year is to run 1:41. Some people say to me ‘Wanyonyi you can run the world record next year’. But I say no. The world record may come in a few more years, but I am still young.”
Meanwhile, Wanyonyi has been able to carry out his long-term plan to make running work for his family.
His successes so far have enabled him to locate his mother and younger family members, build a house for them on their own plot of land and send his siblings to school.
His fame has also inspired other young talents from his village to take up the sport – without a hint of mockery.
“Many boys in my tribe now run,” he said. “My plan in future is to open a junior camp. Then I will find someone who can run, and train young men and young women.”
By World Athletics
