Why Kenya’s Edward Cheserek Is America’s Next Great Runner

Why Kenya’s Edward Cheserek Is America’s Next Great Runner

A collegiate superstar from abroad provides hope for U.S. distance running

By Matthew Futterman in the Wall Street Journal

American distance runners have spent much of the past two decades losing to Kenyans and Ethiopians. Now the U.S. just might be on the verge of fixing that problem—if a fast Kenyan named Edward Cheserek becomes an American.

A sophomore at Oregon, the 5-foot-6 Cheserek is well on his way to becoming one of the best college distance runners ever, a combination of talent, confidence, dedication, patience and humility whose potential looks limitless.

Just 21 years old, Cheserek will defend his national indoor title in the 3,000-meter race at the NCAA championships this weekend in Fayetteville, Ark., where he will also be a favorite in the mile. He won the indoor 5,000 last year, but is passing on that race this time around to focus on gaining speed.

In November, he won his second consecutive cross-country national championship, keeping alive his hopes for an unprecedented four cross-country titles. Not even the legendary Steve Prefontaine, who won seven national championships at Oregon, pulled off that feat. Last spring, Cheserek won the outdoor national championship in the 10,000 and finished a close second in the 5,000. Already, Cheserek has five national collegiate titles.

For Cheserek, who came to the U.S. five years ago to attend a New Jersey prep school, racing is a pretty simple endeavor, regardless of the distance. “I run smart and then kick,” he said in a recent interview in New York, where he finished eighth against a world-class field of pros in the Millrose Games’ Wanamaker Mile.

Cheserek is so versatile that his college coaches haven’t decided which distances he will focus on this spring or in his final two years. “He can be good in any number of things,” said Oregon coach Robert Johnson. “It would be foolish for us to try to pencil him in and put him in a box.”

Oregon, the mecca of American track dating to the days of Prefontaine and venerable coach Bill Bowerman, is no stranger to versatile track stars. But Cheserek’s early dominance has American track boosters thinking the world’s next great distance runner just might end up competing for Team USA, even as soon as next year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Cheserek is pursuing American citizenship and has said he hopes one day to compete and win Olympic medals for the U.S.

If that happens, Cheserek will hardly be the first nonnative American to land on an Olympic podium. According to Olympic historian Bill Mallon, 259 individual and team Olympic medals have been captured by athletes born elsewhere, including track stars Meb Keflezighi (Eritrea) and Sanya Richards-Ross (Jamaica).

But unlike other national federations, most notably soccer, USA Track & Field doesn’t actively recruit athletes who are eligible to compete for other countries, said USATF spokesman Jill Geer. She said any nonnative athletes who competed for the U.S. gained citizenship “organically,” usually because they lived in the U.S. for years before they became citizens.

Cheserek’s journey to the U.S. began in 2010, when St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark accepted him as part of a program that sponsored bringing one Kenyan child each year to attend the school. Cheserek stepped off the plane with no money. He spoke little English and lived in a 60-bed dormitory.

School officials and coaches had heard Cheserek was a pretty good runner. He had certainly come from the right region in Kenya. His hometown, Iten, is 7,000 feet above sea level in the heart of an area famous for producing the world’s greatest distance runners. He also had done well in local races, but nothing prepared them for what they saw during summer workouts a few weeks before school started.

On a hot day, coaches Marty Hannon and Chelule Ngetich decided to test the kids with a tough workout—six “repeat” miles, with minimal rest between them. Cheserek ran every mile far ahead of the pack. He finished his fastest mile in 4:30, his slowest in 4:55. St. Benedict’s has had its share of great athletes, Hannon said, but no one had ever put on a show in practice like that.

“He understood he had a gift,” Hannon said of Cheserek.

Cheserek, a business-administration major, is in the U.S. on a student visa. With the help of an immigration lawyer affiliated with St. Benedict’s, Hannon is leading an effort to get him what is known as an aliens of extraordinary ability visa. That would serve as a green card and the first step in an expedited effort for him to gain citizenship ahead of the 2016 Olympics. It is very unlikely that Cheserek could be a citizen in time for this summer’s world championships in China.

Given the patient approach Cheserek and his coaches have embraced, rushing into international competition doesn’t appear to be a high priority. His training schedule is light compared with those of elite distance runners who are known for their 90-to-120-mile weeks. On most days Cheserek runs just seven or eight miles, including his speed work, with a long run of about 15 miles on Sundays.

“There is a lot more to distance running than running miles,” said Johnson, the Oregon track coach. “This is about plotting and mapping out not just the year ahead but the years ahead.”

Cheserek quickly became fascinated with gluttonous American foods, but he remains shy with strangers and almost uncomfortable in the media spotlight. In high school, he would occasionally point unwitting photographers or reporters looking for him to his teammates as a practical joke.

Ironically, because Cheserek is so dominant, there is something of a mystery about how fast he might be. Cheserek’s best times in his favorite races—13:18.71 in the 5,000 and 28:30.18 in the 10,000—are well below world-class, but in most races he has only gone as fast as he has needed to so far. “I’ll be ready when the time comes,” he said.

To that end, Andy Powell, Oregon’s distance coach, has him focused on the shorter distances this weekend in Arkansas. The ultraefficient motor that gives Cheserek endurance is clearly there. Now he just needs to learn how to stay efficient when his lungs are burning by staying erect and keeping his body moving on a straight line instead of rocking from side to side.

“If he can continue to get faster, that will help him on longer distance races,” Powell said. “The faster we can get the athlete, the better the sprint and kick, and the better he will be.”