Ondieki, Yobes

Yobes Ondieki, (born Feb. 21, 1961, Kisii, Kenya), Kenyan distance runner who surprised observers in 1993 by setting a world record in the 10,000 metres, an event he had not run on a track in 10 years. At the time, his performance was considered by some as the best distance race ever run.

After attending Iowa State University, Ondieki trained mostly in the United States. Following years of injuries and bad luck, he became a world-class runner in 1988, when he finished 12th in the 5,000 metres at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. He became a champion the next year, when he was the first man in 10 years to beat Said Aouita of Morocco in the 5,000 metres. He ran the world’s best 5,000-metre times in 1989 and 1991, and his 1991 time, a personal record of 13 min 1.82 sec, was the sixth best ever at that time. He won the 5,000 metres at the 1991 world outdoor championships in Tokyo, but he finished a disappointing fifth in the event at the1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, which took place shortly after he developed sciatica.

Ondieki then set his sights on the July 1993 Bislett Games Grand Prix 10,000-metre race in Oslo, which was held on a track where dozens of records had fallen. When he began training for the 10,000 metres in February 1993, he had not run the event on a track in 10 years. He prepared with three months of altitude training and three 5,000-metre races through mid-June. On July 10, 1993, Ondieki ran the 10,000-metre race, treating it as if it were just two 5,000s. He asked the pacesetters to run the first 5,000 metres between 13 min 25 sec and 13 min 30 sec, a speed that onlookers said would leave him too weary for a strong finish. However, after a 5,000-metre time of 13 min 28 sec, Ondieki led for the last third of the race and finished in 26 min 58.38 sec, shattering the 27-minute barrier that had been expected to stand into the next century and shaving 9.53 seconds off a world record that had fallen by only 24 seconds during the previous 15 years. Coming five days after fellow Kenyan Richard Chelimo had broken a four-year-old world record, Ondieki’s mark made 1993 the first year since 1956 in which the 10,000-metre record had been broken twice in one season. According to two widely respected comparison tables at the time, Ondieki’s was the greatest distance race ever run, from 1,500 metres through the marathon.

An increasingly strained relationship with Kenyan track and field authorities surfaced when he did not run in his country’s 1993 national trials and refused to defend his 5,000-metre world championship at Stuttgart, Germany, that August. Although he continued to race competitively for a time, Ondieki subsequently translated his athletic expertise into a career coaching other runners in his native Kenya.