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After Kenya had produced the men's 3000m steeplechase champion at both
the 1968 and 1972 Olympic Games, the nation's athletes had been denied
the opportunity to continue that sequence in 1976 and 1980 as a result
of boycotts. In 1984, Kenya had the opportunity to re-establish its
Olympic dominance at Los Angeles, where this challenge was triumphantly
achieved by Julius Korir. Prior to this, Korir had first emerged in the
1982 season when he won the Kenyan national title. On the
international scene that year, although he finished second at the
African Championships in Cairo on 27 August, he caused somewhat of a
surprise when he won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in
Brisbane on 4 October in a personal best time of 8min 23.94sec. In
1983, he improved this time to 8min 20.2sec at Munich on 26 July, and
then finished 7th at the World Championships in Helsinki on 12 August.
At the Olympics in Los Angeles the following year, Julius established
himself as a serious contender for the gold medal when he won his
semi-final on 8 August in a new personal best time of 8min 17.40sec. In
the final, held two days later, Korir was always with the leaders, and
when he started his sprint for home with just over half a lap remaining,
the rest of the field were unable to respond, allowing Julius to run
away and score a decisive victory (see photo above) in a career
best time of 8min 11.80sec. Korir missed the 1985 outdoor season due to
injury, and although he competed for several more years after making a
strong return to competition in 1986, the depth of Kenyan steeplechasing
talent made it extremely difficult to gain selection on national teams,
and he never again represented his country at a major international
championships. (Ron Casey)
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