Mike Boit

Mike Boit
Full name	Michael Kipsubut Boit
nation	Kenya
birthday	January 6, 1949
place of birth	Eldoret ,  Kenya
job	University professor
Career
National squad	since 1972
status	resigned
End of career	1983
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 0 × 1 × Commonwealth Games 1 × 1 × 1 × African Championships 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games bronze Munich 1972 800 m  Commonwealth Games gold Edmonton 1978 800 m silver Christchurch 1974 800 m bronze Brisbane 1982 1500 m  African Championships gold Dakar 1979 1500 m
last change: December 23, 2014

Michael Kipsubut Boit known by his nickname, Mike Boit (* 6. January 1949 in Eldoret ), is a former Kenyan middle distance runner , who at the Munich Olympics in 1972 , the bronze in the 800 meters won and then long the world leaders belonged for over a decade. After the end of his competitive sports career, he embarked on an academic career as a university lecturer at Kenyatta University .

Childhood and youth

Boit is a member of the Nandi ethnic group . He attended St. Patrick's High School in Iten until 1969 , which later became known as the "birthplace" of numerous top athletes such as Peter Rono , Matthew Birir and Ibrahim Hussein . It was there that Boit's talent for running was discovered early on. In 1969 he became a national high school champion in the 800-meter run . His parents, on the other hand, attached great importance to his school performance and made sure that he always belonged to the top of his class so that he was exempt from school fees. He then went to Kenyatta University College, which he left in 1972 with a degree in physical education.

Athletic career

The 1.80 m tall and 68 kg heavy Boit first received international attention at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In the 800-meter run, he won the bronze medal behind the American Dave Wottle and the Yevgeny Arshanov running for the Soviet Union . In the public perception, this race was mainly remembered because of Wottles' strong final sprint, which at the beginning of the home straight had apparently been hopelessly behind. In addition, Boit took fourth place in the 1,500 meter run . He was denied further participation in the Olympics because Kenya boycotted the 1976 Games in Montreal and 1980 in Moscow .

Despite this, Boit managed to establish himself among the world's best over the years. At the British Commonwealth Games in Christchurch in 1974, he won the 800 meter silver medal behind his compatriot John Kipkurgat and relegated the later 1500 meter Olympic champion from New Zealand, John Walker, to third place. In 1976 Boit set an African record in the 800-meter run when he won the International Stadium Festival in Berlin with a time of 1: 43.57 minutes. The following year, he met double Olympic champion Alberto Juantorena from Cuba at the 1977 World Athletics Cup in Düsseldorf . In the eagerly awaited duel over 800 meters, Boit had to admit defeat by a tenth of a second. The future world champion Willi Wülbeck from Germany reached the goal with a clear gap to the two in third.

At the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton in 1978 , Boit celebrated an undisputed victory in the 800-meter run ahead of the Jamaican Seymour Newman . In the following year he started in the first edition of the African Athletics Championships in Dakar in the 1,500 meter run. He won ahead of the Algerian Abderrahmane Morceli , older brother of the eventual world and Olympic champion Noureddine Morceli . In 1980, Boit ran an indoor world record over 880 yards in San Diego . The following year he was named Kenya's Sportsman of the Year .

Boit won his last international medal at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. Behind the newly crowned European champion Steve Cram from England and John Walker, he took third place in the 1500 meter run. Over the same distance he reached the final at the World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 1983 , but was only twelfth and last.

Boit remained actively involved in running for a few more years. Most recently he set an indoor world record in the M40 age group at a mile run in East Rutherford in early 1989 with a time of 4: 15.48 minutes .

Boit's training mainly consisted of speed runs (partly as a driving game ) based on many quiet kilometers. This enabled him to make his competitions very variable and to run the usual 6.5 km in cross country in Kenya and as a student in the USA .

Personal bests

discipline	Best performance	date and location
800 meters	1: 43.57 min	August 20, 1976, Berlin
800 meters (hall)	1: 47.20 min	February 22, 1980, San Diego
1000 meters	2: 15.30 min	September 23, 1977, Wattenscheid
1000 meters (hall)	2: 21.40 min	February 17, 1973, New York City
1500 meters	3: 33.67 min	28 August 1981, Brussels (meanwhile)
1 mile	3: 49.45 min	28 August 1981, Brussels
2000 m	4: 59.43 min	September 4, 1985, Rieti
3000 m	7: 45.61 min	July 17, 1982, London
5000 m	13: 35.70 min	August 31, 1982, Luxembourg

academic career

The entrance to the main campus of Kenyatta University in Nairobi

Mike Boit's nephew Philip Boit tried his hand at cross-country skiing.

Even during his time as a competitive athlete, Boit advanced his training. At Eastern New Mexico University in Portales , he completed a degree in physical education with a minor in biology, from which he graduated in 1976 with a Bachelor of Sciences . In the following two years he earned two master's degrees from Stanford University . From 1978 to 1979 he worked as a visiting professor at Kenyatta University for the first time.

In 1986 he received his PhD in Education from the University of Oregon at Eugene . His dissertation is entitled The Relationship of Teacher Behavior to Student Achievement in High and Low Achievement High Schools in Nairobi. Since 1987 he has been a senior lecturer at Kenyatta University.

He also held various positions in sports administration. From 1989 to 1999 he was a member of the athletes' commission of the IAAF World Athletics Federation and from 1992 to 1995 on the Board of Directors of the Special Olympics . Between 1990 and 1997 he was the state commissioner for sport in Kenya.

Others

In 1983 Boit undercut the then world record of the Briton Sebastian Coe over the mile with 3: 28.36 minutes by 19 seconds - but on a steeply sloping road in Auckland with about 190 m difference in altitude . Coe, however, had set his world record (3: 47.33 minutes) two years earlier in a direct duel with Boit at the Van Damme Memorial in Brussels.

In 1998, Boit's nephew Philip Boit gained international fame as a cross-country skier and thus Kenya's first participant in the Winter Olympics .

Web links

• Mike Boit in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Mike Boit in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Portrait of Mike Boit on the Kenyatta University website

Footnotes

1. ↑ Der Spiegel : The Hungry Win , Edition 32/1995
2. ^ John Bale: Kenyan Running: Movement Culture, Geography, and Global Change. Frank Cass, London 1996. ISBN 0-7146-4684-9
3. ↑ German Road Races : A Story About Professor Dr. Mike Boit from Yomo Kenyatta University in Nairobi ( Memento of the original from November 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , June 23, 2009
4. ↑ Sports Illustrated : Dave Wottle , July 2, 2007
5. ↑ Der Spiegel: Fight against the bucks , issue 40/1981
6. ↑ Sports Illustrated: Runners Mike Boit And Alberto Juantorena ( Memento from November 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English), December 23, 2002
7. ↑ Los Angeles Times : O'Sullivan Wins Mile, Sets 1,500 Record, Too , February 11, 1989
8. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The changes in training systems for medium and long distance runners (1850–1997). In: N. Gissel (Hrsg.): Sporting performance in change . Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, pp. 41-56; http://www.letsrun.com/2010/juantorena-coe-kipketer-rudisha-1120.php
9. ↑ The New York Times : A Sub-3: 30 Mile , April 9, 1983
10. ↑ Sports Illustrated: Coe On The Go (English), September 7, 1981