KORIR Emmanuel Kipkurui

General
RUNNING THE 800M
He grew up in a village outside Iten, Kenya, and attended the same high school as Kenyan Olympic gold medallist David Rudisha. He grew up primarily as a 400m runner, and it wasn't until 2016 when Kenyan-born coach Paul Ereng recruited him to study at The University of Texas at El Paso that he began to run the 800m. Ereng liked how "explosive" he looked, and began working on long distance and cross-country runs with him to build stamina and endurance, and in 2017 he began focusing on the 800m. In 2018 he said he next had to work on strength. "What I need now [2018] is a little bit of strength. I feel like I need to be stronger, you know? I have the speed, I have the endurance. I do a lot of workouts, speed work. But what I lack is the strength. I will have to go to the gym." He competed for The University of Texas at El Paso in 2017, but lost his NCAA eligibility in order to run professionally while still remaining a student. (worldathletics.com, 30 Jul 2018)

SPRINTING CULTURE IN KENYA
During the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, where he finished sixth in the final of the 400m after failing to make the 800m final, he said he believed a lack of facilities in Kenya was the biggest obstacle to the growth of sprinting culture in the country. "The perception that Kenya cannot produce sprinters is wrong. We have talented runners. The biggest challenge we have is facilities which is not the case in the countries which are doing good in the short races. The government should benchmark with the best in the world and seek to upgrade the few venues we have and establish a good environment for sprinters. We have good coaches but there is little we can do to mitigate if we lack the facilities. It's time the relevant authorities get out of the comfort zone and find a solution." (the-star.co.ke, 04 Oct 2019)

In 2018 he became the first man to have run both a sub-44.25s 400m and a sub-1:44 800m during their career. (flotrack.org, 24 Jun 2018; bbc.co.uk, 22 Jun 2018)

In 2017 while studying at The University of Texas at El Paso he became the first athlete representing the university to win back-to-back indoor and outdoor national titles in the 800m event. (utepminers.com, 01 Jan 2018)