Irishman nurtures decades of Kenyan runners

By Andrew Cawthorne

ITEN, Kenya (Reuters) - When Brother Colm O'Connell left Ireland in 1976 to teach geography in Kenya, he had no athletics experience whatsoever.

"I'd done a bit of soccer coaching but I knew nothing about running," the genial, ruddy-faced Irishman said in the lilt of his hometown Cork.

He learned quickly. Three decades later, O'Connell is one of the world's most successful coaches and his St. Patrick's School, in the western highland village of Iten, has an unrivalled history of producing Kenyan world-beaters.

Dozens of trees planted round St. Patrick's, a $500-a-year school, honor illustrious alumni who have set world records or won at the Olympics, Commonwealth Games or world championships.

O'Connell has trained around 20 of those champions, including Peter Rono, Wilson Kipketer and Sally Barsosio, whose successes have helped earn Kenya its international fame for middle- and long-distance running.

"There are very few schools that could compare to it in producing world-beating athletes," O'Connell told Reuters.

If any, say experts.

O'Connell and other coaches in the area face a new challenge in this Olympic year -- helping their runners to recover from the post-election violence that shook Kenya for two months after Christmas and killed more than 1,000 people.