Bernard Lagat after his historic 1500/5000 double (© Getty Images)
With his older sister his inspiration, and the words of his mother his motivation, Bernard Lagat announces that he is ready to cap a brilliant career with a little piece of history at the Olympic Games in Beijing. His goal? To become the first athlete to do the 1500/5000 double twice at a global championships.
Although his unbeaten record for the year took a fall in the Emsley Carr Mile, at the Aviva London Grand Prix, on 25 July, Lagat continues to be upbeat about his prospects for Beijing. “Mentally, I’m ready for any challenge,” he says. But it’s not just trying for his first Olympic gold medal – or two – that he has to think about.
A family promise
At stake for Lagat, as well as sporting glory, is the need to deliver on a promise he made to his mother, Marsalina. Four years ago, after adding an Olympic silver medal at 1500m to the bronze he had won in 2000, he gave an undertaking to complete the set in Beijing 2008.
“I made a promise to my parents, especially my mother,” Lagat said. “I told her I am going to win the gold. I talked to her right after I got my silver. She said you were 3rd in 2000, now you are 2nd in 2004. The next time is going to be yours to bring the gold.”
When Lagat did the double at the World Championships in Osaka last summer, he dedicated his success to his brother-in-law, who died in 2006 with a complication of diabetes. Describing him as his No.1 fan, Lagat said in Osaka: “He would have loved to have been here and I told my sister coming to the track in the bus that this is for William Lagat, my brother-in-law.”
Now, as he seeks to follow in the 1500/5000 Olympic double-winning footsteps of Finland’s Paavo Nurmi (1924) and Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj (2004), Lagat is drawing on his sister, Mary Chepkemboi Lagat, for inspiration. Bernard hails from a family of runners and it is this that drives his enthusiasm.
He is the fifth born of 10 siblings and, together with both parents, all have embraced the sport. Mary, the second-born, was the 1984 African 3000m champion. The third-born, William Cheseret, is a 2:12.09 marathon runner (2004). The sixth-born, Evelyne Jerotich Lagat, ran a 71:35 half marathon in San Jose last October, and the eighth-born, Robert Cheseret, is a 13:13.23/28:20.11 5000/10,000m runner (2005).
On their way up are Lagat’s younger sisters, Irene and Viola. “Irene is the No.1 runner at the University of Arizona as a junior – she was the ninth-born,” Lagat said. “The last-born, Viola, is going to beat all the girls in track and field. She is 17 and runs 1500/5000.”
Guidance from older sister
But it was Mary who was the future world champion’s inspiration. “She went to the Commonwealth Games and World Cross Country,” he said. “Mary inspired me so much. In Nandi (district), it is always hard to have a girl who stands out tall in the family and becomes a leader. But my sister was a leader from the beginning. She respected my dad and mum but she was a leader.
"Every time I looked at her I wanted to be like her. The way she was running, composing herself – even though she was 16-years-old and flying to Japan and Australia, she was composed. I wanted to be the one flying in the air like her, seeing white people. I had only seen one white person and that was my priest. I think he was from Ireland.
“I just wanted to intermingle with people. Then, when I went to high school, I realised that this was what I needed to do – be the best in running, in academics. My sister said she would support me. She said: ‘I am paying your school fees – all you have to do is study and you will realise your dream of going to America’.
“She laid the foundation for all of us in the family to follow running, to appreciate running, to respect runners, and to respect running as the family sport. She is the one who did everything for us. She told me I could be somebody out of this when I didn’t know what being somebody out of running was.
“She said I could be a world leader, a gold medallist, an Olympic champion, and those are the things that still resonate in my mind. She said it a long time ago but it is as if she said it yesterday “How prophetic she was. Not only did Lagat become a double World champion and double Olympic medallist, he is the US record holder at 1500m (3:29.30)
“My older sister is rooting for me right now and we always talk together. She tells me: ‘Be cool, concentrate, you have won all (but one of) your races. Now I want to inspire my little sister. She looks up to me. She doesn’t look up to anybody else. I like the fact that she wants to work hard, to be successful like I am. When she competes, I try to go to watch her and give her my support.”
‘Can I live up to what I have set for myself?’
For now, though, all the family eyes are on Bernard. Can he succeed in his double bid, having accomplished the feat at the US trials this summer for the second time, as well as in Osaka last year? “I believe so,” he said. “But I’m not looking it like El Guerrouj, or somebody else, did it before but Lagat did it in 2007. So can I live up to what I have set for myself? That is the challenge.
“Everything has been going well. My training has been good since April. I went altitude training in Flagstaff, Arizona, came back, and did a lot of work with my coach (James Li) in Tuscon, Arizona. Last year I had trouble with my stomach but now I’m good - stronger, healthier.”
Lagat has also been training in Tubingen, Germany, teaming up with Kenyan athletes. A Kenyan who became a US citizen in 2005, the 33-year-old Lagat now lives in Tucson, with his wife, Gladys, and two-year-old son, Miika
‘The pressure is there’
Does being World champion at both events make it harder for Lagat, and make him a marked man, going into Beijing? “That pressure is there but, at the same time, I try not to let it overwhelm me,” he said. “I try to channel it differently – I’ve done it before, so I think I’m going to do it again.
“When I was running at the US trials, I was thinking: “I did this last year, three races and two races at 5000. It’s like another day in the office - you get out in the morning and do what you have to do. Yes, there is pressure and expectation, but I will use it positively.”
Marsalina and Mary – and all the other Lagats – would expect nothing less.
David Powell for the IAAF
