Samuel Wanjiru
KENYA
BIRTHDATE:
November 10, 1986
PERSONAL BEST:
2:05:24 (London 2008)
WORLD MARATHON MAJOR HIGHLIGHTS:
24Aug08 Olympic Games Marathon, Beijing 1st 2:06:32
13Apr08 Flora London Marathon 2nd 2:05:24
ADDITIONAL CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:
02Dec07 Fukuoka Marathon 1st 2:06:39
CAREER NOTES:
Two recent world-record holders in the half-marathon, Paul Tergat and Haile Gebrselassie, have gone on to set world records for the marathon. Samuel Wanjiru hopes to follow in their footsteps and make it three. Even if he doesn't, Wanjiru had does something neither of them ever did: win an Olympic Games Marathon.
Two months before his 19th birthday in September 2005 he set his first world record with a 59:16 at the Rotterdam Half-marathon. After Gebrselassie lowered that record to 58:55 in 2006, Wanjiru ran 58:53 at Ras al Khaimah in February 2007, although lack of post-race EPO test there prevented it from ratification. That didn't turn out to be so critical as Wanjiru went on to post an official world record of 58:33 at Den Haag just a month later.
Wanjiru's marathon debut was eagerly awaited and while he couldn't make a prospective appearance at New York City, he came through with flying colors in his adoped home country in December. Taking on the Fukuoka Marathon he not only won but set a new course record of 2:06:39 at a race which has seen many of history's greatest marathoners compete, including Gebrselassie.
In his first race of 2008, Wanjiru broke Gebrselassie's course and Spanish all-comers' half-marathon record with a 59:26 victory at Granollers. He set another record of sorts with the highest ever road racing payday when he earned $300,000 for a 1:00:33 win at the Zayed International Half-Marathon in Abu Dhabi in late February.
At the 2008 Flora London Marathon, just his second 42.2km race, Wanjiru gave the experienced multi-major winner Martin Lel all he could handle. He wound up just nine seconds behind in 2:05:24, to become the fifth fastest marathoner of all-time.
Four months later, Wanjiru moved up on the list of the greatest distance runners in the history by becoming the first Kenyan to win the Olympic Marathon gold medal. He ran through the first half with a pack of other runners at sub-2:06 pace and as the others fell off, Wanjiru kept up his form through the heat and humidity of Beijing. He reached the finish in 2:06:32, smashing the 24-year-old Olympic record by two minutes and 49 seconds. At the age of 21 he was the youngest marathon gold medalist since 1932.
Wanjiru was originally a track runner and in 2002 first attracted some fame with an age 15 world record of 28:36.08 for 10,000 meters. His best time stands at 26:41.75 in 2005, which like his half-marathon of 59:16 that year, stands as the world junior record.
PERSONAL NOTES:
Samuel Kamau Wanjiru was born in Nyahururu and left Kenya in 2002 to go to the Sendai Ikue High School in northern Japan. He represented the Toyota Kyushu Company and has been coached by Koichi Morishita, the silver medallist at the 1992 Olympic Games marathon. In June 2008 he returned to Kenya to live with his wife and year-old child.
