Shut up Cram

Steve Cram is one of Britain’s top all time athletes. He won gold medals in the Commonwealth Games, European Championships and World Championships and a silver medal in the Olympics all in 1500m in the mid 1980’s.

You would think that a guy with his experience on the track field would know one or two things about respect and fair play but his article in The Guardian is anything but fair play and is, frankly, borderline racist.

Cram’s main beef seems to be the Kenyan crowd cheering when Bekele pulled out of the race on the final lap. How can Cram be so sure of the reasons behind the crowds’ celebrations? After all they had just seen the junior Kenyan men and women totally dominate and sweep the medals. Maybe the crowd were still on a high because of that. Anyone who has been to a major Kenyan sporting event knows that it is noise and singing the whole may through. If you do not believe just ask any non Kenyan who has been to the LA Sevens or London Sevens rugby tournaments. It doesn’t matter if Georgia is playing Argentina in the semi-final of the bowl, you can be sure that the Kenyans will still be making noise.

Anyway back to the article. According to Cram the crowd’s celebrations were “shocking” and the crowd was “delirious”. Apparently Kenyans showed a, “distasteful example of sporting rivalry prompting unacceptable levels of animosity [and] … proved to be lacking in the sportsmanship that athletics is used to.” He goes on to mention that next year when the championship is held in Edinburgh, the crowd will be “partisan but sporting”. Ok so when the Kenyans (read Africans) celebrate they are shocking, distasteful, full of animosity and delirious, but when the crowd in Edinburgh (read Europeans) celebrate they will be, “partisan but sporting”.

He then goes on to suggest that holding the championship in Mombasa was a mistake because of the extreme weather conditions. Yes it was hot and humid. Cram then goes on to say that the driving rain of Edinburgh would be better.

OK what? If this guy had his way all athletic events would be held in the rain of Great Britain. These same bogus excuses they are spouting now about the weather being unacceptable in Mombasa is the same stuff they said about the Olympics in Athens when many European athletes found the conditions too hard. Biggest example: Britain’s Paula Radcliffe.

I remember reading an article on one the greatest athletes we will ever see (and my close personal buddy) Michael Johnson. One evening during a training session the heavens open and torrential rain started pouring. All the other athletes went in but Johnson and his coach stayed out running and practicing in the heavy rain until they finished their session. When the reporters asked Johnson why he stayed out he told them, “One day I may have to race under these conditions and I want to be ready.” Now that is preparation for you. Only the Ethiopians know why their challenge at this year’s Cross Country championship went pear shaped. There had been rumours of some discord in the Ethiopian camp and this article mentions just how ill prepared for the conditions they were.

Cram then goes on to say that when the Cross Country championship is held in Edinburgh next year Cross Country will be, “really home.” LOL. What a muppet. Kenya is the spiritual home of long distance running Cram, upende usipende.

Now this article got me thinking. It is clear that Cram has something against Kenyans. So I did some quick investigating. When you look at all the medals Cram has won, which I mentioned above, there is one medal missing from his collection, that one medal which is the King of Medals, the Olympic gold medal. Cram never won an Olympic gold medal. In Seoul in 1988 he was the favourite to win. Instead he was upstaged by a young upstart called Peter Rono who won the Gold. Which country did Rono win the Gold medal for? Well you do not need me to tell you that. Suddenly Cram’s distaste for Kenya makes sense. Oh well, another one bites the dust. Cram should just be happy he was running long distance before Kenyan athletics organised itself to be the force it is today. Otherwise even the few medals he won would just be rumours.