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Double Olympic champion decries sorry state of Kericho stadium
Reading Time: 3min | Sun. 05.01.25. | 19:20
She says that the stadium's track has forced her to move training to Iten, which is also not suitable
Double Olympic gold medalist Beatrice Chebet is not pleased with the state of Kericho Green Stadium, which was renamed Kiprugut Chumo Stadium.
The stadium was renamed to honor Chumo, who made history at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics when he became the first East African to win an Olympic medal.
He won bronze in the 800 meters (then 880 yards), raising the Kenyan flag high.
In the subsequent 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico, he upgraded to silver in the same event, clocking one minute, 44.57 seconds after coming in second to Australian Ralph Doubell.
Chumo died in November 2022 aged 90 after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Despite the stadium’s renaming, less has been done to fit the status of a man who brought the country so much joy.
Speaking in an interview with NTV, Chebet noted that the stadium’s condition has worsened despite the renovations.
The tartan track was removed and the stadium is now littered with stones, making it dangerous for athletes to train.
“Stadia has been a problem for athletes in Kericho. The track at Kericho is not even tarmac. It is very rocky. I would rather they even just remove the stones and replace them with murram. That way, you can use track spikes or normal training shoes to train there,” she lamented.
The 24-year-old noted that the sorry state of the stadium forced her to leave her home Kericho to Iten in search of better training facilities.
Even in Iten, the situation is not all rosy.
“Kamariny in Iten is not 100 percent. Kipchoge Keino in Eldoret is also not at 100 percent, but those stadia are more conducive for us athletes, and that is why I had to move from Kericho to come and train in Iten,” she explained.
The trailblazing athlete argued that the stadium’s dilapidated condition discredits the legacy of the decorated athlete it was named after.
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“For us, we have the Kericho Green Stadium—not the Kiprugut Chumo. But I think they should at least better the tartan track there by leveling it. As a result of its condition, I cannot train ideally whenever I am in Kericho,” she concluded.
Chebet enjoyed an impeccable 2024 season that saw her win two Olympic gold medals in the 5,000 and 10,000m.
Before the Olympics, Chebet broke the 10,000m world record in Eugene.
She ended her year on a high by running a stunning 13:54 to shatter the world 5km record at Cursa dels Nassos, a World Athletics Label Road race, in Barcelona on New Year’s Eve.
What made her time even more sensational is that she was the first woman to break the 14-minute barrier on any surface, surpassing Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay’s 5,000m world record of 14:00.21.
In doing so, the 24-year-old Kenyan bettered the previous record by 19 seconds.
