Former multiple world record holder Henry Rono dies at 72

Athletics Kenya (AK) has announced the demise of former world record holder, Henry Rono after a 10-day hospitalization at the Nairobi South Hospital just three days after turning 72.

Rono is remembered for breaking four records in 81 days, a feat that remains unmatched to date.

Stifled by the Kenyan boycotts of the 1976 and 1980 Summer Games, Rono never experienced Olympic glory. But his 1978 season was one of the most remarkable ones in track history.

Over 81 days, as a 26-year-old Washington State sophomore, he set world records in four events: the 3,000m, 5,000m, 10,000m, and 3,000m steeplechase, a feat accomplished by no one else before or since.

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Running for Washington State in the Triangular Match meet, the short but long-striding Rono powered his way relentlessly into the world record book.

Hitting the front after a sluggish opening 67.3 lap, he proceeded to chase the clock on his own, averaging circuits of 63.1 overall and closing with a 59.5-second final lap to cross the line in 13:08.4, breaking Quax’s record by 4.5 and improving his lifetime best by 13.7

Next, Rono turned his attention to the 3000m steeplechase. In Seattle on 13 May, despite windy conditions and a ragged hurdling technique, he clocked 8:05.4, carving 2.6 off Anders Garderud’s two-year-old record.

After becoming the first man to hold world records for the 5000m and 3000m steeplechase, the indefatigable Kenyan moved on to Europe for an assault on compatriot Samson Kimobwa’s 10,000m figures of 27:30.5. Rono crossed the line in a stunning 27:22.4 (27:22.47 according to the electronic photo-cell timing) – a whopping 8.2 seconds inside Kimobwa’s record.

Rono produced another negative split to claim world record number four. At the Bislett Games in Oslo on 27 June, he finished 3.1 inside Brendan Foster’s 3000m time, clocking 7:32.1. He ran 3:49.5 for the first half and 3:42.6 for the second, a 1500m PB for him.

Those four runs alone would have guaranteed a place in any pantheon of all-time greats but Rono proceeded to secure a 10,000m and steeplechase double at the All-Africa Games in Algiers and toyed with some high-class opposition before claiming 5000m and 3000m steeplechase golds at the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada.

He went unbeaten in 31 outdoor races in 1978 until an epic two-mile tussle with Steve Ovett in the end-of-season IAC-Coca Cola meeting at Crystal Palace, the Briton’s formidable kick taking him to victory in a world outdoor best of 8:13.5.

After missing the 1980 Summer Games, he started the 1981 season with a beer belly but finished it with another 5000m world record, running 13:06.20, breaking his Berkeley time by 2.2.

Sadly, the drinking took its toll. In the years that followed, Rono endured periods of homelessness, was arrested for drunk driving, and undertook a string of menial jobs in towns and cities across the USA just to survive.

Happily, though, in the late 1990s, he started to get a grip on his alcoholism. He learned English properly for the first time, qualified as a teacher, and started coaching.

“I’ve been to the top of the highest mountain and then came down to the bottom of the world,” Rono reflected when receiving the 2008 Inspiration Award at the World Athletics Gala in Monte Carlo. “Looking back now, I can remember what happened in 1978, but then the next eight years are more or less a blank.”

The period in his life of which he is most proud, he insists, is not when he broke four world records in 81 days, but the time when he enrolled in community college and finally achieved the goal that had long eluded him: a mastery of English.

Additional reporting by World Athletics