Susan Sirma

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Susan Sirma medal table

Middle distance running , long distance running

KenyaKenya Kenya
World championships
bronze 1991 Tokyo 3000 m
Pan-African Games
gold 1991 Cairo 3000 m
gold 1991 Cairo 1500 m
gold 1987 Nairobi 3000 m
silver 1987 Nairobi 1500 m

Susan Sirma (born May 26, 1966 ) is a former Kenyan middle and long distance runner .

Athletic career

Sirma achieved her first successes by winning the silver medal over 1500 m at the East and Central African Championships in 1983 and winning the 5000 meter run at the Kenyan Championships in 1986. At the end of the 1980s she established herself as one of the best runners in Africa, as she won the gold medal in the 3,000-meter run and the silver medal in the 1,500-meter run at the 1987 Africa Games in Nairobi . On both routes she took part in the Olympic Games in Seoul , but was eliminated there in the preliminary rounds.

Her final international breakthrough came at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in 1991 . There she won the bronze medal in the 3000 meter run behind Tetjana Samolenko-Dorowskych and Jelena Romanowa from the Soviet Union and thus celebrated the most important success of her career. Sirma's time of 8: 39.41 minutes also meant a new African record. She finished seventh in the 1500-meter run in Tokyo. A few weeks later she was able to defend her title over 3000 m at the Africa Games in Cairo and this time also won the 1500 m. With times of 8: 49.33 min and 4: 10.68 min, she set championship records on both courses.

In 1992 she finished ninth at the World Cross Country Championships in Boston and led Kenya to victory in the team championship. Most recently, she competed in the 1500-meter run at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in the same year , but failed there in the preliminary round.

Importance for the Kenyan running sport

While Kenyan runners have regularly won medals in the medium and long-distance range at major international events such as the Olympic Games and World Championships since 1968, female runners from Kenya have not had any comparable successes. For a long time, women's sporting ambitions were not supported in Kenyan society. Sirma became the first Kenyan woman in history to win a medal at world championships in Tokyo in 1991. Together with runners like Sally Barsosio and Tegla Loroupe , who won bronze medals over 10,000 m at the World Championships in 1993 and 1995 , she laid the foundation for the Kenyans' advancement to the top of the world in medium and long-distance running.

Others

Susan Sirma is 1.63 m tall and weighed 52 kg during her active days. The successful long-distance runner Lornah Kiplagat is her cousin and was inspired to run by her. Kiplagat said of Sirma: “She had run abroad, and when she came home, to see her… to see her train… I would start to shake. It was like, 'Wow!' We sang songs about her. We would walk around her house. When I would run after a goat, I would think, 'Run like Susan.' Susan was like a really big thing. " ("She had run abroad, and when she came home to see her ... watch her train ... made me shiver. It was like, 'Wow!' We sang songs about her. We walked around her house. When I saw a goat After running afterwards, I thought, 'Run like Susan.' Susan was really a big deal. ")

Top performances

  • 1500 m: 4: 04.94 min, August 29, 1991, Tokyo
  • 3000 m: 8: 39.41 min, August 26, 1991, Tokyo
  • 5000 m: 15: 03.52 min, September 10, 1991, Berlin

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gbrathletics.com: East and Central African Championships
  2. gbrathletics.com: Kenyan Championships
  3. ^ David G. McComb: Sports in World History. Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0-4153-1811-4
  4. Jürg Wirz: Run to Win: The Training Secrets of the Kenyan Runners. Meyer & Meyer Sport, Oxford 2006. ISBN 1-8412-6188-2
  5. ^ John Bale: Kenyan Running: Movement Culture, Geography, and Global Change. Frank Cass, London 1996. ISBN 0-7146-4684-9
  6. Jonathan Beverly: Lornah Inventing Herself and a Better World. In: Running Times. No. 336, 2006, pp. 18-25.