Sons Of The Wind

So Ereng seemed to affirm that it is culture, not some gene, that makes the difference, and in Kenya the racing culture is making converts of even the nomads.

An hour south of Iten, Kibor bids you stop at Kapsabet Stadium, in Kapsabet. A brick wall surrounds low, roofed stands that have the aspect of cattle barns. This track is the source, the one from which so many great Nandi athletes sprang. It was here that Henry Rono, watching Keino from afar, made his silent promise to become a runner.

Boit is lobbying the IAAF to install a modern all-weather track in Kapsabet, and he has a case if the idea is to place the track in the exact spot in Africa where there is the most interest in running. "The only trouble with that," British distance runner Tim Hutchings has said, "is the rest of the world no longer will have a chance."

Kibor is such a novice that he has never run here, and he wants to put in a few laps of devotion. The track surface is moist sand and clay, and is unaccountably springy. Upon it, Kibor runs like a freshly released antelope.

Soon he goes blazing down the straightaways, and he doesn't slow much in the curves. He obviously has terrific natural speed, which makes it curious that he has never raced anything shorter than a 10,000.

"I watched them running the 1,500, and I saw they ran fast" he says, panting. "I didn't know if I could run that fast, because I had never specialized. And in the 3,000 and the 5,000, too, they looked like they were running fast. But in the 10,000 I saw I could just run along slowly and catch everyone at the end."

He rockets away. "I can run the 1,500," he says when he passes again, "if I specialize."

He has never even done any track training. He has simply grown up Kalenjin in the Cherangani Hills, and come to a decision. Had you known in high school that people like this existed, it would have darkened your dreams of running.

Here, though, it has the opposite effect. The vision of Kibor in full stride has drawn a flock of kids. They watch for a while, poker-faced; then, told it's O.K. to go on the track, they fly into motion like a covey of quail, boys and girls, forming a ragged pack. They're impatient, they surge and elbow and squeal, and when it's time to go, you can't get them stopped. But never again will you quite think of them as children.