Kenya has been thrown into mourning again following the death of one of its former elite athletes Henry Rono which occurred on Thursday, February 15, at 1030am. Athletics Kenya announced the
Goddamn…Whenever I feel like I’m in a bit of a rut, I go back to reading about his epic comeback from beer gut to world record holder. REST IN PEACE CHAMP
Not as tragic as a runner dying in their prime but Rono's accolades were so legendary off the charts it reminds me of Kiptum. He did what had never been done before. And like Kiptum he never got to perform on the biggest stage as Kenya boycotted 1976 and 1980 Olympics.
And then I was just following the sport and people are like "hey this guy works as a skycap in New Mexico" and Henry would post on LetsRun occasionally. With Henry for the first time I realized our superstars are human as well.
Here's a great thread from 2005 on him. Has a great article from Marc Zeigler on him as well.
Thank you Henry for your brilliance! May you rest in peace.
Not as tragic as a runner dying in their prime but Rono's accolades were so legendary off the charts it reminds me of Kiptum. He did what had never been done before. And like Kiptum he never got to perform on the biggest stage as Kenya boycotted 1976 and 1980 Olympics.
And then I was just following the sport and people are like "hey this guy works as a skycap in New Mexico" and Henry would post on LetsRun occasionally. With Henry for the first time I realized our superstars are human as well.
Here's a great thread from 2005 on him. Has a great article from Marc Zeigler on him as well.
Thank you Henry for your brilliance! May you rest in peace.
I didn't know kenya boycotted those 2 olympics. Wonder why? One was in western world democracy and one in the soviet union. Too bad back then people were not jumpimg ship to become American citizen. We would be lucky to claim him.
I think he still owns the NCAA XC record, from the 70s!
It was sad to see this news. RIP, Henry. I will never forget racing you in your comeback attempt.
I wrote this four years ago on a Rono thread. Actually, I did more than race against him. I was his pacer so we talked a bit before and after the race.
I met Henry and raced him in his comeback attempt a decade ago. The next day we went for a run together and I got to know him a little better. After the race, he graciously posed with me and the son of friend who was thinking about running high school cross country. Maybe meeting Henry was the little push the kid needed to run XC.
At one point, Henry Rono was arguably one of the most famous runners in the world. I remember traveling to Italy in the late 1970s and seeing a two-story-high poster on the side of a building promoting Henry's participation in an upcoming race. He looked invincible and bigger than life. So much promise... the future looked so bright.
Sadly, this wasn't the case. Many of Henry's problems were his own doing, to be sure, his alcoholism, his weight problems, his inability to grasp the most basic aspects of the business world.
Still, many 67-year-olds would have given up, but Henry, to his credit, still has a dream. We should chip in to make it happen. Let's support this old man's dream
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He is the reason I am on this site....well, the article about him where he mentioned his comeback and posting on this site (Maybe it was in Runners World?)
I posted in that original thread from years ago about my experience with Henry. Along with Nurmi and Zatopek, he was one of the original GOATs. A very talented, quiet, kind and troubled man who was abused by coaches and the system.
Not as tragic as a runner dying in their prime but Rono's accolades were so legendary off the charts it reminds me of Kiptum. He did what had never been done before. And like Kiptum he never got to perform on the biggest stage as Kenya boycotted 1976 and 1980 Olympics.
And then I was just following the sport and people are like "hey this guy works as a skycap in New Mexico" and Henry would post on LetsRun occasionally. With Henry for the first time I realized our superstars are human as well.
Here's a great thread from 2005 on him. Has a great article from Marc Zeigler on him as well.
Thank you Henry for your brilliance! May you rest in peace.
I didn't know kenya boycotted those 2 olympics. Wonder why? One was in western world democracy and one in the soviet union. Too bad back then people were not jumpimg ship to become American citizen. We would be lucky to claim him.
I think he still owns the NCAA XC record, from the 70s!
1976: New Zealand national rugby team did a tour of games in South Africa, despite the ban on South Africa participating in sport due to their racist apartheid policies. 25 African nations plus a few others boycotted the Olympics to protest this.
1980: Moscow was hosting the Olympics and the Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan. President Carter announced that the US would boycott the Moscow Olympics and asked allies to join. Kenya was one of the nations who did.
As a side note, Ethiopia was one of the 25 African countries who boycotted in 1976 but since their government was Soviet-aligned, they of course competed in Moscow in 1980 but then joined the USSR in their counter-boycott of the 1984 Olympics in LA. Four years later, Ethiopia and a few other communist countries (though not the USSR or East Germany) joined North Korea in a boycott of the 1988 Summer Olympics in South Korea.
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