Elite coaching special - The secrets of Kenya's success

Humble beginnings
Moses revealed he was not out running at an early age: "I started running late, not like many others in Kenya who start when they are 14 or 15. I started when I was 19. All my life and in school I didn't know much about running. I knew about Kip Keino like everyone else in Kenya does. When I finished school I used to play football."

It was after he had finished school that Moses joined the army and it was here that he started running: "When it came to my military duties I joined the athletics team. In the military you have to follow all the orders and it can be a little harsh. I started running.

"What was in my mind was that I would make money from running. I took athletics as my first job. There was no day when I would say, 'I am tired' and did not want to train. I always wanted to do something. By doing that it enabled me to run for many years not just for two or three years."

Facilities in Kenya
Moses explained the athlete support in Kenya is hardly extensive: "With Kip Keino everyone in Kenya, even young children, know about him, even if they had not seen him running. From the 1960s he has been a national hero. He left Kenya to race with a Kenyan flag and came back with a Kenyan flag. He opened an orphanage. In every community in Kenya everyone wants to be Kip Keino.

"There are junior championships in Kenya and a lot of training camps for them [juniors]. The only problem we face is the lack of training facilities and a lack of qualified coaches. People just tell them to run - not a proper training programme.

"In the first World Junior Championships Kenya got seven gold medals. We still believe in Kenya that we have more talent there if we have proper training facilities.

"A lot of shoe companies are going to Kenya to give kit, training facilities and training for coaches so that the coaches are trained to look after young athletes.

"Most of our athletes are from Eldoret and from the Masai tribe. Companies are going there because the talent is so close. In the training camps they are given proper ways of training, accommodation and training facilities. We still believe that we could have more athletes from that place but we need more coaches. Some big Kenyan athletes have played a big role in Kenya. When they have finished running they go home and start a training camp. Before the shoe companies were there people had their own training camps - I had one. I was helping youngsters. It is more difficult to do now as if you have not got the proper training facilities or shoes to give them people will go where they can get these facilities. We don't have enough facilities. We have two tartan tracks in the Nairobi area and apart from that we use mud tracks. We don't have good gyms. We carry rocks and stones and use our body weight. We hope as time goes on we will be pushing to have all these things - when we have money from shoe companies.

"We are lucky in Eldoret as we have hills so we do very well in the long distance events like the marathon. That has played a major role - in Kenya in the 70s and 80s we never had a very good marathon record. In the 90s to this time we are doing well.



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