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Although Moses Kiptanui had already won three successive World
Championships titles by the beginning of 1996 in the 3000m steeplechase,
he had yet to compete in an Olympic Games. This was because he missed
selection to the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona due to injury at the
Kenyan trials, although his world record breaking spree immediately
following the Olympics proved that he would have been a force to be
reckoned with at Barcelona if he had been able to compete. So with
Kiptanui's dominance of the steeplechase since 1991, his Olympic debut
at Atlanta in August 1996 was keenly anticipated.
Kiptanui seemed in
excellent form prior to the Olympics, winning an indoor 1500m event at
Stuttgart on 4 February in 3min 36.88sec, and then early in the outdoor
season, he finished third behind Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie in a 5000m
event at Rome on 5 June in new personal best time of 12min 54.85sec.
In the Olympic final on 2 August, Kiptanui (see photo above) was
strongly challenged by compatriot Joseph Keter. The Kenyan pair reached
the final water jump side by side, but then Keter slowly edged ahead to
win the gold medal, with Kiptanui capturing the silver in a time of
8min 08.33sec. During a post-race interview, Kiptanui stated that he
had been sick and not training well, and had not felt comfortable
throughout the race.
Kiptanui got some small revenge over Keter 12 days
later at the Weltklasse meet in Zurich, where he beat Keter by a mere
1/100 of a second with a winning time of 8min 09.85sec. However, Keter
won their next encounter at Brussels on 23 August, where Kiptanui
finished third in a time of 8min 12.65sec, and it appeared that
Kiptanui's five-year stranglehold over the event was finally starting to
slip away. (Ron Casey)
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