REUTERS
The 2013 winner of the Tour de France, Chris Froome, says Kenya has a rich pool of endurance athletes and that the next great cyclist is out there somewhere.
Kenyan-born Froome said his country’s success in middle- and long-distance running shows that the East African nation is awash with gifted athletes capable of competing in the world’s toughest endurance races.
“It seems that there is so much talent here,” Froome told reporters in Nairobi as he sat next to Kenyan rider David Kinjah, who was his childhood mentor. “You just have to look at the natural ability of runners to see that Kenya has a lot of talent, but in cycling it’s not going through; it’s being stopped.”
Froome won a medal for Kenya in the All Africa Games in 2007, but in 2008 he switched allegiance to Britain after receiving little financial support in his homeland. He said the same problems are now facing other Kenyan riders.
In his youth, he took up cycling when he met Kinjah and began crisscrossing Kenya’s lush highlands with his mentor’s team of young riders, mostly teenage boys from the tiny village of Mai-I-Hii on the outskirts of Nairobi. Froome said one of the reasons he returned to Kenya was to help cyclists like Kinjah, who work with young men who have talent but no money. His plan is to launch his own foundation and start raising money.
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