George Mallett talks to the mentor who has masterminded the careers of some of the most successful distance runners in history
Few coaches have ever guided quite so many Olympic champions as Patrick Sang. For over 20 years, the 3000m steeplechase Olympic and world silver medallist has led the Global Sports Communication Camp in Kaptagat, western Kenya, writing Eliud Kipchoge his first ever training plan and masterminding the successful comeback of Faith Kipyegon after the birth of her daughter. Even Uganda’s 5000m Olympic and 10,000m world champion Joshua Cheptegei has spent time under his watch.
A total of 25 athletes stay in Sang’s camp, looking after themselves as he drives in from nearby Eldoret to manage their day-to-day training. With some of his athletes undergoing possibly the most testing times of their careers, he sat down with AW to talk about their legacies. knowing full well that this summer’s Paris Olympics may define his own.
How would you describe yourself as an athlete?
Maybe a self-made athlete. I discovered that I was able to run by accident in class competitions. I got a scholarship [to America] and then all the way until when I retired I was basically self-coached 80 per cent of the time.
Did this make you realise you might make a good coach for others? What else made you want to follow that path?
That probably influenced my decision to help athletes. Towards the end of my career, people joined my training and they just followed my programme. I was training for the 3000m steeplechase but people were following.
I could also see that, besides being a coach, you need to be able to lead. The fact that people would follow my programme showed that I was also a leader of some sort.
How did you get better as a coach?
To coach somebody else you have to be trained. You have to acquire the knowledge. After my running career I went for coaching training for long and middle distance, from the lowest level to the highest level.
But when you train you use yourself and the way you used to do things as a case study.
You can refer to what you used to do. That’s why you go to school and then you go for practical training. My practical training came before the actual learning, so it was easy to refer.
Patrick Sang
Can you explain your philosophy?
My philosophy is that, to have a successful relationship between coach and athlete, you have to have total trust. An athlete that trusts you, even when you tell them to run something that is not normal, they can do it because they trust you.
Many good athletes who are talented, you train them, they listen to so many voices, they achieve maybe 80 per cent instead of 100 per cent. The ones who give total trust to the relationship, they achieve 100 per cent.
Talking of those athletes, Faith Kipyegon said she’s never been so surprised as when she broke the world 5000m record last year with 14:05.20 in Paris. Were you?
No because I am the one who designed the programme.
She never even saw that the training plan had changed. I don’t remember her saying: “Why are we doing these things?” So that qualifies what I said before about the philosophy. Because if somebody trusts you and you have the knowledge of exactly what you are doing, you will never take them in the wrong direction.
With Faith, trying to move towards 5000m was there for 2023 but she couldn’t wait for 2023 to start the preparation. You start from the first phase of the training which is the build-up stage, so you broaden the base. She was doing longer runs than before.
Faith Kipyegon (Getty)
We’ve seen you take her on 40km long runs before. I don’t know many 1500m athletes that run that distance in training
Even Wycliffe Kinyamal, second in the 800m at the Xiamen Diamond League in 1:43, runs 40km. It’s not the way the other marathoners run it but you run varied by your ability. The guy is huge but he runs 40km. His first competition – 1:43.66.
That’s why I’m saying you have the knowledge, you understand the ability of the person and then you make a mixture [of training] because coaching is also an art. Whatever mixture you put, it should take you to the ultimate goal.
Why do you think other coaches aren’t doing very long runs for middle distance athletes?
I don’t know. The only person that came close to the way I do things is the father of Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Gjert). We were engaged in a philosophy discourse one time in Zurich, discussing how we approach different things. The way he answered in terms of approach and everything, it sounded like the way we do things.
What have you noticed about Eliud Kipchoge’s mindset? He said the past few months have been challenging and he was affected mentally going into Tokyo (he has since revealed he didn’t sleep for three days in the build-up due to death threats on him and his family after the death of Kelvin Kiptum). Have you noticed him recalibrate since then?
Considering what happened, and what was said, anybody would be in that position but nobody is always at the bottom. Because if things push you in life to the bottom, you always find a natural way of coming back. I’m hoping, and I’m seeing, that he’s formed a natural way of coming back.
Eliud Kipchoge (NN Running)
You have trained Eliud for over 20 years now. Is it different training him these days?
When you train a racehorse, they are worked together with jockeys and, when they see the jockey coming, they know it’s time to work. But some run away from the jockeys.
In the case of Eliud, he is the easiest person to train. Eliud knows why he is training, he knows this is the time for this, this is the time for that. He knows why he is doing it.
He used to do it for different reasons but I think those reasons have expanded.
When you are young you want to run and represent your country. I don’t know any athlete that wants to be an athlete that does not dream one day of representing their country.
When you move from that level and come to the world of commercials – the business world – you realise besides this vest, the national colours, there are opportunities, incentives out there. From there you go to another level, you see the sport, you can influence people.
You see the way he is changing as he is becoming older. He is thinking about legacy. Without those incentives, then we will just stop our careers.
Eliud Kipchoge (Bob Martin/INEOS 1:59)
He is going for his third Olympic gold in a row. If he were to achieve that, where would it rank in his achievements?
To me, my prayers are that he wins. When he gets there and he wins, I think we have different ways of interpreting it. I remember the 1:59 challenge, if you look what happened in the curriculum in some schools, it had a lot of impact.
If he gets there, to me what is more important is that we will see longevity in a different perspective. We will see different possibilities as people, people who love sport, even the scientists would want to know, is it the mind only or is it the body?
Eliud says that his marathon training blocks don’t change and won’t change for the Paris marathon course, which is hillier than any of the major marathon courses. I’m not sure I believe that.
In essence the overall concept of what you want to achieve in endurance, in speed endurance, in strength, remain almost the same because those are the fundamentals. I think that is what he is talking about. The fundamentals don’t change but the timings and when you accept certain fundamentals change because of the nature of the programme you are trying to achieve.
Can you tell us about your new assistant – former Olympic and world steeplechase champion Brimin Kipruto? Did you coach him?
From high school and for his entire running career, from identification to retirement.
He has developed an interest to go into coaching. We are looking at different opportunities. So far we sent him to Ghana to train in sports management and administration. It’s one step towards the right direction.
I’m not young any more. We need people. Besides Brimin we have another world champion [2001 World Cross Country short race champion Enoch Koech]. We also have Augustine Choge, who was Commonwealth 5000m champion. We are looking at training them to be good administrators and good coaches.
This feature first appeared in the June issue of AW magazine