He went ahead to win a gold medal at the Championships that year, and repeated the same at the Daegu World Champion- ships months later. The only difference between the steeple- chase and other middle distance events is on the agility needed to jump over the barriers efficiently and also the ability to run at constantly changing pace variations, i.e. slowing down to clear the barrier and pool of water, then accelerating again before approaching the next one. However, the world’s most renowned steeplechasers hardly spend time on these drills, much of their training is really on the running itself, jumping the barriers is something that is al- most comes natural and does not require any specialized training. I would advise that an athlete who is interested in running this event not be discouraged by various articles on the Internet describing the discipline as if it is a rocket science, by mentioning specifications like keeping a low waist line; and turning your feet on back outwards like in the hurdles while jumping over a barrier; and landing in the water pit at a certain posture, etc, because you will very likely injure yourself during training. Actually, it is possible for any athlete who has been training on


their speed, strength and endurance aspects, to run a steeple- chase competition, without ever having practiced jumping over the barriers, and win, but for the 110m or the 400m hurdles, a lot of training is needed on leaping over the barriers because they are more closer together and you have to get right the number of steps you take before each one. After chatting with various 3000m steeplechase athletes here and having witnessed some of them rising to stardom, I dis- covered that many of them never had any past experience on jumping the barriers. In fact while selecting athletes to represent some regions in the national competitions in Kenya; it is only at the provincials and nationals that they become exposed to the barriers,


38


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