Marathon News - Matthew Birir's Life After Olympic Gold

Dec-3-2005

Matthew Birir's Life After Olympic Gold
by Pat Butcher
(c) Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

When a successful Western athlete retires nowadays, chances are that the last hop, step or jump will be into the commentary box. At the World Championships in Helsinki last summer, you could barely move on the media benches without bumping into an Olympic gold medallist, world record holder or other athletic high achiever.

Michael Johnson, Steve Cram, Marie-Jo Pérec, Saïd Aouita, Sally Gunnell, José-Luis González, Steve Ovett were just some of the former elite hunched behind a microphone, slumming it with the hacks; not to mention Ovett’s old sparring partner Seb (Lord) Coe, taking up the occasional invite to say a few words about pulling off his latest sporting surprise –-winning (almost
single-handedly) the 2012 Olympics for London.

But what about the winners from less fashionable or lesser-funded nations, like Kenya which, despite its plethora of Olympic and world gold winners cannot yet afford to send a dedicated television crew to major Games? Take Matthew Birir, for example.

Hardly anyone has noticed that the 1992 Olympic steeplechase champion, Birir is a marathon runner nowadays. Perhaps that’s because, unlike his near neighbour in Kenya, world record holder with 2:04:55, Paul Tergat, Birir has not been as successful on the roads as he was over the barriers and water jumps. Maybe he just hasn’t found the right formula yet, and is hoping that Sunday’s (04 December) Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon will provide the key.

Birir thought he was going to be the first man in history to successfully defend an Olympic 'chase title. But he believes that the well-documented dispute between Kenyan management and athletes in Atlanta prevented him winning again.

"I was disappointed by Atlanta. I expected to win. I ran well in our Trials, I beat Moses (Kiptanui) and the rest of a really strong field. I was ready to win in Atlanta. But I wanted to train somewhere cool, and just fly in before the heats. But there was an argument between the Olympic committee and the federation. We were told, either you go two weeks before, or you don’t go."

"Then the weather was terrible," he continued, "so hot! We said we wanted to train early morning, but we were forced to train when it was really hot, and it just messed up my shape. I lost the race in the last two laps." The Kenyans kept the gold, when Joseph Keter was the surprise winner, but Birir finished fourth. "At first, I wanted to quit, but then I decided I would do something completely different, so in 1997, I started in the marathon."

He has run sparingly, just six marathons in six years, while he has been building up his business interests. But, for a Kenyan, the results have been mediocre. He began with an eighth place in 2:14 in Amsterdam 1997, but his best remains 2:11:43, when he took third in Los Angeles in 2003.

"I expected to do better. I expected to win my second marathon, in Hamburg in 1998, but I ran 2:15 and the race was won in 2:10. I think I did too much work, it’s easy to undertrain and to overtrain for a marathon, and I overtrained. It’s been better the last three years, I’ve been training with Felix Limo, who won Chicago. I’m consistent 2:11, 2:12, and I’ve finished second in Taipei, and third in Brussels (’04) as well as third in LA."

During that time, Birir married and had three children; and built a variety of businesses –-farming sugar-cane ("very hard work, and expensive, but good rewards"), a small transport company, "and, I think you call it estate agent, I rent out houses."

"I shall retire soon, I’m 33, and do something completely different. I’m doing a correspondence course in marketing, I want to study more. But I want to stay involved. I go to schools, to lecture on the benefits of running.
Because in Kenya, you’re either a professional runner, or you don’t do anything. You don’t run for fun. A lot of people do physical work, which keeps them fit, but those who don’t, need to exercise. Kenya is changing.
Our life is turning to Western culture. More people are driving everywhere, and eating junk food. So I go to schools and lecture on the dangers in such a life."

Birir hopes to lead by example in Sunday’s race, but Singapore is a particularly hot and humid place to do it.

"Water! I’ll use a lot of water. Every water-station. Just like in LA."