Dec 19, 2006 - Famed Kenyan runner Kip Keino visited Cornell University last week and LetsRun.com was pleased to be on-hand to meet the living legend. It was only appropriate that Keino, the one many credit with spawning the Kenyan domination of world distance running when he won the first of his two Olympic golds in 1968 (to see a great video of his dominating 1500 gold, click here), visited Cornell because Cornell is a school that in some ways started the Kenyan domination of US collegiate distance running.  Stephen Machooka, Cornell class of 1964, was the first Kenyan to compete in the US collegiate system. Machooka competed for Cornell starting in 1960.  

After touring Cornell (Keino was amazed about the size of the dairy cows produced by Cornell's famed Agriculture and Life Science College) and meeting with Cornell's president, David Skorton, Keino spoke at two different receptions. At both, Keino spoke about his amazing success both as an athlete and humanitarian.  Keino also talked about his high altitude training center - the Kip Keino High Performance Training Centre (kipkeino HPTC). The motto for Keino's life seems to be "You come with nothing, you leave with nothing" which he uses to illustrate the importance of giving to the less fortunate.

Kip Keino's eldest son Ian,  who runs kipkeino HPTC (checkout their website), also visited Cornell during his first trip to the United States (Ian and Kip first went to Honolulu where Kip was honored by the Honolulu Marathon).  LetsRun.com's co-founders Weldon and Robert Johnson could only laugh when Ian said it was an honor to meet the brothers Johnson as LetsRun.com is apparently "big" in Kenya.The honor was really in them meeting Ian and his father.

1988 Olympic 1500 meter champion, Peter Rono, also toured Ithaca with Keino. To see photos from the event, please see below. To read Cornell University's account of Keino's visit to Ithaca, please click here. To read pre-visit coverage on Keino from the Ithaca Journal, please click here.