Have we seen the last of David Rudisha?

It was at the unfancied Bregyo Athletic Center in Hungary that he last ran, competitively. The sporting world was bracing for more magic from an athlete at the peak of his athletics career. He was two months shy of his 28th birthday and the year was 2017.

David Lekuta Rudisha, a legend of the track with back to back Olympic medals in 800m and a standing world record in the two-lap race has not been seen on the tracks again. Even the sporadic appearances in sponsored events have stopped.

A colorful career spanning eleven years since he first represented Kenya in the World Youth Games in Beijing, China 2006 ended without fanfare. Yet Rudisha’s accomplishments place him in the same mold as the famous world-beaters like Usain Bolt.

“Bolt was good, Rudisha was magnificent,” World Athletics president Seb Coe remarked after the 2012 London Olympics.

While his ‘contemporary’ made a long, organized farewell from competitive athletics, Rudisha simply vanished from the radar. Several comeback promises to curious journalists and fans have failed to be kept over time, and now it is becoming apparent that Rudisha is done.

"I still feel like I still have something in me. I have not exhausted everything," he told Rob Reynolds of BBC in march 2020.

"There is something left in the tank and that is what I want to exhaust before I think of doing other things. If you saw me one month ago I was a little bit heavier, but now I am losing the weight and the response is pretty good. The routine is back. When you miss out on training and competition for two years it is never easy,” he added.

In an interview with Spike Magazine in October 2019, Rudisha was open about turning to partying as a way to release the pressure he felt from his on and off-track issues.

"With everything else going on in my life, the pressure sometimes got to me," he was quoted. "To release it I'd often hang out with friends, partying too much. It's not something you intend to come your way but sometimes, during periods like that, you look for a bit of destruction to distract yourself."

He more or less denied admitting to ruinous party life four months later. "Well, I, you know, I have never really directly spoken about partying but, you know, just a social life that everybody has the right to enjoy," he told BBC.

"Whenever we have a [athletics] meet, sometimes we go to socialize, to go out for instance. That is normal life. I never meant anything extreme, because that is not what I do. Mostly I am a very focused person and disciplined. Sometimes when you have friends, you go out and throw a party and so forth, and that is actually what I meant."

A fractious split from his teenage sweetheart Liz Naanyu who later became his wife and mother to two of his children, two car accidents in a thirteen-month span resulting in vehicle write-offs, a freak slip and fall in his own compound resulting in complicated medical surgeries and several not so pleasant narrations are the take outs from a peek into Rudisha’s current lifestyle.

Oh, there’s still a dream for a third Olympic medal.

Son of 1968 Olympic 4x400m relay silver medalist Daniel Rudisha, the younger Rudisha got the athletics buzz from his famous parent who showed him his Olympic medal when he was younger to spur him to great things.

“I realized I could run after finding out that my dad used to run and it gave me the morale that if he did it then maybe I could also run,” the younger Rudisha offered to World Athletics. “He made me so proud because I knew he could do it,” said the late elder Rudisha, who was overcome with emotion as his son brought home the junior gold.

David started running seriously in 2004, while in the last year of his primary school education. He was competing in decathlon.

In 2005, he linked up with veteran Irish coach, Brother Colm O’Connell, of St Patrick’s School in Iten, who enrolled him at the nearby St Francis Kamuron School for his secondary education so he could train on the grounds of St Patrick’s. That year, he represented Kenya at the East Africa Youth Championships over 400m in Arusha, Tanzania, where he clinched silver in 48.2. Having observed him in training, O’Connell advised him to switch to 800m, or at least double at both events, and a new star was born.

In 2006, Rudisha finished sixth at the senior African Championship trials at Kasarani, setting his then-personal best of 1:46.3. Weeks later, he sealed his place at the national junior team for the World Junior Championships in Beijing, running 1:47.20 at the event’s trials in Nairobi.

In the Chinese capital, Rudisha blasted to glory in style. Running in his first-ever two-lap race away from home, he was quietly confident as he waited for his opportunity.

“The competition would be stiff because the Bahrain athlete Mansoor was claiming that he had run 1:44 and that we had no chance, so I kept quiet and decided to let my feet do the talking on the track,” he said after the race. In the final, he stayed cool behind the pack until the last 100m, when he produced a devastating kick to clinch gold in 1:47.40. “I was so happy and elated,” he continued. “It wasn’t easy but I had morale and wasn’t afraid of the competition. We had stiff competition but we gave ourselves the chance and drive to do well.”

At the 2007 Africa Junior Championships, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Rudisha stormed to 800m gold in 1:46.41. His first Golden League victory soon followed at the Weltklasse Meet in Zürich where he clocked 1:45.51. A week later, Rudisha roared past the field to register another victory at the Van Damme Memorial GP in Brussels (PB1:44.15).

In 2008, Rudisha qualified for the African Athletics Championships, in Addis Ababa, after clocking 1:47.2 in the third AK meet at Gusii Stadium.

At the African Championships in Addis in early May, Rudisha lived up to expectations by motoring away to win the continental crown in 1:44.20.

On 6 September in Rieti, he recorded his standout performance of the year. Running in perfect conditions, Rudisha floated around the track beautifully, eating up ground with consummate ease as he posted a new African record of 1:42:01, breaking the previous record that had stood for 25 years.

Rudisha kicked off 2010 in style running a new personal best in 400 meters (45.50) in Sydney on 27 February.

At the African Athletics Championships in Nairobi, the question was not whether he would win, but how fast he would run. The powerful athlete did not disappoint, with a scintillating run that saw him stop the clock at an astonishing 1:42.84.

"I wanted to run a fast time to impress the home fans, maybe a 1:43, but even I could not believe it. Kenyans were expecting me to win and my aim was not to disappoint," the 21-year-old said afterward.

At the World Championships in South Korea, Rudisha had one goal. Win a world title.

After going the heats and semis where he seemed not to move out of second gear, on August 30, Rudisha officially sat on top of the men 800m running after a seemingly effortless 1:43.91 triumph at the Daegu Sports Stadium to claim gold.

He survived being spiked on his left heel as the competitors scrambled to get their positions early on to assume the lead before unleashing a flawless display of front running, going through the opening lap in 51.33 before going on to win the title.

“It was tough, my shoe almost came off and I believe that would have been the end of my chances but thank God, it held.”

“I’m so happy for the victory since I was under a lot of pressure, I have never run a race under the kind of pressure I was in today but in the end, I finally made it. Being the world record holder, everybody was expecting me to win. I was very tense at the start,” he explained.

In 2012 Rudisha ran in only five competitive races abroad with the focus firmly on the Olympics.

Having gauged his speed at the 18 February Sydney Classic over 400m (45.82/2nd), Rudisha returned to familiar territory, winning the Melbourne Classic (1:44.33) on 3 March to lay the platform for the start of his proper season.

He delivered on his pre-race pledge to obliterate the American all-comers record on his United States debut at the 9 June New York Diamond League meet, when he stopped the timer at a staggering 1:41.74.

A 1:41.54 world lead in Paris on June 6 saw Rudisha make further history as the first 800m male athlete to record six career sub 1:42s, well ahead of Kipketer who had four and Coe and Joaquim Cruz who had one.

What followed was the finest moment of his career to date and a race that entered the annals of history as the best ever in men’s 800m and was later acclaimed as the best individual performance on the track in London 2012 earning a standing ovation from watching luminaries led by Lord Sebastian Coe.

Not only did he win the Olympic gold medal, but he smashed his own World record to leave the clock reading a scarcely believable 1:40.91 in a gun to tape performance where seven of the eight finalists ran to their personal bests.

A testament of the majestic performance was the fact Britain’s Andrew Osagie, who was last, managed a 1:43.77 lifetime best that would have won the Olympics title at the Beijing 2008, Athens 2004 and Sydney 2000 Games.

“It takes confidence and conviction, and Rudisha was good enough to do it. He led the field through the bell in 49.28s, and then began to open the gap with 300m to go. That’s not surprising, because everyone in the race was running above themselves just to reach the 500m mark at that pace. At 600m, which was passed in 1:14:30 (25.02s for the 200m split). Rudisha was clear, and on course for the record. He slowed in the final 200m, covering it in 26.61s, but it was enough to break 1:41, and claim Kenya’s second gold,” the Science of Sport summed up the landmark race.

Everything was shaping up for a rewarding 2013 and a successful world title defense in Russian when the Olympics champion easily won his opening two Diamond League races in Doha and New York although had he had the foresight of the nightmare to follow his second outing, he would have opted out of the race.

He was jogging around the famous Central Park when he tripped and hurt his knee and initially, he thought it was nothing much but after running, it began swelling and it was later diagnosed he needed corrective surgery.

After the 2013 misfortunes, Rudisha’s graph has pretty much been on the descent with occasionally hard-fought victories and flashes.