Putting his best foot forward
Kenya’s unflappable Rudisha takes accomplishments in stride
I want to win. I did my best. This is just the beginning. At least now I have a point from which I can build on.” David Rudisha, after finishing fourth on Saturday in Shanghai
Two-time 800m Olympic champion David Rudisha has laced up dozens of pairs of spikes over his illustrious running career, but most aren’t relegated to his shoe rack back home in Kenya.
Not even that very first pair of adidas he bought in the late 1990s, using pocket money he painstakingly saved.
“I’m a generous man; whenever I have new shoes, I give away my old ones,” Rudisha said ahead of Saturday’s Shanghai Diamond League competition.
“I have never worn out a pair of shoes ... I always give them away to the boys back home because I know they have a tough time finding shoes.”
Spikes aren’t the only thing he’s quick to unload. The man has also shown he’s a supreme optimist, eager to purge the negativity of life’s setbacks.
The fact Rudisha cites his victory at the 2015 World Athletics Championships in Beijing as his greatest achievement to date, instead of his world record run at the 2012 London Olympics or his second gold medal at last year’s Rio Olympics, only reinforces the notion he puts progress above milestones.
“The win in Beijing might not have been my fastest time, but to me it was my greatest achievement because it represented a victory over my problems, my injury and being at the top again,” he said.
On April 26, Rudisha posted a thought on Twitter, underlining his philosophy of decluttering mind and soul: “Ships do not sink because of the water around them. Ships sink because of the water that gets in them.”
His reaction to Saturday’s race, in which he trailed his rivals throughout and eventually clocked 1:45.36 to finish fourth, was in the same vein.
Armed with a megawatt smile, Rudisha was unfazed afterwards, attributing his performance to early-season lethargy. He believes he just needs a few more weeks to get his engines roaring.
“In any competition, I want to win. I did my best. But I’m happy. I can now go back and see where I can improve from here,” he said. “This is just the beginning. At least now I have a point from which I can build on.”
He said his positivity stems from the wise words of his father, a silver medalist in the men’s 4x400m relay at the 1968 Olympics, who drilled into him that there’s more value in failure than success.
“The most important thing he told me is that as an athlete, there is winning and losing. You learn more when you lose, because when you lose you ask yourself what went wrong and what do you need to do to get better and beat the competition,” Rudisha said.
The Kenyan’s main objective for this year is retaining his 800m crown at the World Championships in London in August. But true to his disposition, he’s also aiming to expand his repertoire by making his 1,000m debut at the IAAF World Challenge meet in Ostrava, Czech Republic, on June 28.
“It’ s out of my comfort zone, but I’ll try my best and see how I perform. It’s not like I can go at the same pace as the 800m. I have to be a little slower and see how I push that last 200 meters,” he said.
While he admits to still harboring an ambition to break the 100-second barrier before retiring, Rudisha said he’s not overly obsessed with it.
“I’m happy for what I’ve done so far, and I’m hoping I can still continue and go a little further.
“I believe I still have some strength in me to go for a few more years.
“But records are not all that important. What I break today, someone can break tomorrow.”