SWJ for IAAF
17 January 2000 – Seville – He wanders through the lobby of the Hotel Giralda in Seville, wearing an ubiquitous track suit and a soft woollen cap, his inseparable walkman hung on his belt, with its earphones firmly in place. Few people recognise him, yet this is the man who, just 18 hours before, had crossed the finish line of the Cross Italica ahead of five-time world champion Paul Tergat.
So just who is Charles Kamathi?
Until the Ivo Van Damme Memorial last year, he was virtually unknown outside his native Kenya. Certainly, he had made a small mark with his second place in the Kenya Police Championships 10,000m, clocking a very respectable 28:57(A), but little was known of this 21 year-old police officer.
This was hardly surprising. Until his run in the Police Championships he had little competition history behind him and confesses that he had never really taken running that seriously.
"Sure, I ran in school, but then everyone else did too. I only ran in the season, doing a little track and some cross country races. I think my best time was in the 5000m, in 1996, when I ran about 15:15.
"Then in 1997 I ran 13:59 in a weekend meeting in Nairobi."
Notice by a Kenyan police force talent spotter, Kamathi was recruited as part of a programme to strengthen the national police team with potential new athletes.
"I went to Japan last year after the Police Championships, but I was injured so I didn’t really compete at all, and certainly not at a big meet, until my coach and manager Hussain Nekke (a USA-based Lebanese) got me into the race in Brussels. I was surprised myself at my time there."
And well he could be. His time of 26:51.49 was the fastest in the world in 1999.
"Since Brussels, I have been back training with my group – nobody really well known, just friends – in Kimangop. We do a lot of endurance work and now I am starting to do some more speed work."
After his win in the Cross Italica yesterday – he had previously come fifth in the first leg of the 2000 IAAF Cross Challenge in Brussels – Kamathi is now heading back to Nairobi to prepare for the Kenyan Trials on 19 February, with the hope of winning a place on the national team for the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, which will take place in Vilamoura, Portugal, in March.
"It will not be easy. There is a lot of competition for places on the team, but that is really my most important goal at the moment."
What does he think of his chances of facing, and beating, Paul Tergat and Patrick Ivuti again in Vilamoura?
"Like I said, first I have to be selected, then we will see.
"Sure I have beaten them once; but that is only once. It is the first time I beat them so I don’t know how they will be another day.
"The course suited me too, her. When I ran in Brussels it was so cold and muddy that I couldn’t run very well. I have run in mud before, but I never experienced mud like that. It was really too much."
What does his family think of his new career as an athlete?
"I have two sisters and three brothers, I am the third oldest. They are all living in Nyeri, where I was born and grew up and that is a long way from where I live and train now.
"You know, I was always running, so that is nothing new for them. I don’t think that they really understand yet what I have done and I don’t really have much chance to see them."
The extent of Kamathi’s talent has still to be revealed. He has yet to find a major sponsor and would doubtless benefit from the expertise and backing of a major shoe company and it’s training programme.
Paul Tergat had this to say of Kamathi: "You know, he is still young and unproven, but he has really good possibilities. The most important thing is that he is determined and he is very strong in his mind, with this he can go a long way!"
