The worldwide reaction to Kenya's Julius Yego's victory in javelin and Nicholas Bett win in 400m hurdles at the World Championships in Beijing has prompted a reassessment.
Only now has it sunk in what it means to have punctured the western aura of invincibility in field events and sprints at the global championships. But batteries run out of juice.
Yego has proven more than once that with determination, good planning and focus, there is nothing a man cannot do.
From a boy herding his father's cows in Eldoret, throwing his club for fun to control the herd, to a world champion, is a new revolution of how far Kenyan athletes can go.
"Back in 2009, I took Yego to the Africa Championships in Morocco and his best throw was 69 metres. He had entirely relied on the YouTube to polish his throwing skills and when he went to the All Africa Games in 2011, he had improved and won gold," Coach Stephen Mwaniki said Wednesday in Nairobi.
It was after the All Africa Games that IAAF agreed to give him a scholarship to Finland where he met the great javelin throwers who inspired him. He also met there his agent and coach Petteri Piironen and the rest is now history.
Yego was the first Kenyan to reach an Olympic final in a field event at the 2012 London Games, the same year he won an IAAF scholarship to train in Finland.
He has continuously defied the odds, and his coronation in Beijing on Wednesday is a clear justification that clean athletes can still conquer the world.
Six years ago, he couldn't make the 70 metres mark. What a great rise, now the focus will be on the world record, which he missed by eight centimeters. The world record of 98.48 meters was set in 1996 by Jan Zelezny of the Czech Republic.
It was Yego's second shot at the world championships having debut at the Moscow 2013, where he wound up fourth. But the signs were already on the wall when this season he showed his intend when he threw a world lead in Birmingham of 91:39 metres.
Though it was first ruled out for a no throw because it had fallen out of the marks, IAAF, the world athletics governing body, confirmed it as a legitimate throw.
In Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium, there is not going to be any confusion. It had got a little bit out of fashion, but the 90-meter line has made a comeback in the men's javelin.
Yego made sure he won Kenya's first ever gold medal in a field event with a massive throw of 92.72m, a new world lead, Africa record and national record. The Commonwealth Games champion threw the third furthest distance ever and the longest effort by anyone in the last 14 years.
Egypt's Ihab Abdelrahman El Sayed (88.99m) took silver as Finland's Tero Pitkamaki (87.64m) completes the podium.
(Xinhua)
