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Bishop Maurice Antony Crowley, S.P.S.
Bishop Maurice Antony Crowley, S.P.S.
Date of birth: May 11, 1946
Place of Birth: Berrings, County Cork, Diocese of Cloyne, Ireland.
Ordained Priest: June 4 1972
Appointed Bishop: April 27 1998
Consecrated Bishop: August 15,1998
P.O. Box 4656 -30200, Kitale
Office Tel: 254-054-30899/31059
Fax: 254-054-30118
Email: kitalecd@multitechweb.com
Henry Wanyoike, who is blind, is the world record holder of the 5,000m set at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics. He also won a gold medal in the 10,000m Paralympics of Athens in 2004 and a bronze medal in the 5000m Beijing Paralympics of 2008.
He lost his sight after a mild stroke and is an inspiration to many because he overcame suicidal depression and poverty to become the household name he is today.
His famous catch-phrase is that, “I lost my sight but not my vision.”
Pamela Jelimo, 19, who is a famous 800 meter runner.
She has recently inspired many young Kenyan girls to achieve their dreams. This is because, despite starting this year as an unknown quantity, she won a gold medal in the 800 meter race at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. She was also the first Kenyan to win the Golden League Jackpot where her earnings topped the million dollar mark.
Her other achievements include the 800 meter world junior and senior African records.
Despite the dramatic change in her circumstances, she continues to be employed as an unglamorous police constable in Embu District in Kenya.
Another of the famous people from Kenya is Paul Tergat who was born in June 1969 in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya which is renowned for producing a number of world class athletes.
This mild-mannered runner held the marathon world record from 2003 until it was broken in 2007 by Ethiopian superstar Haile Gebreselassie.
In 2004, he was named the UN World Food Program’s “Ambassador against Hunger.”
Easily one of the most recognizable long distance runners, he lives and trains in Kenya’s capital Nairobi.
Tergat founded Fine Touch Communications, a sports marketing and PR company that organizes the Sportsman of the Year awards held annually in Nairobi and sponsored by mobile giant Safaricom.
In 2005, Tergat set up the Paul Tergat Foundation whose vision is to empower disadvantaged communities. Its programs cover a wide spectrum of themes such as community development, education, environment, healthcare, water and sanitation and youth and sports development.
Catherine Ndereba was born July 31, 1972 and has become one of the best female Marathon runners in the world.
As a young girl, something special was at work in this daughter so speedy, she could fetch water in half the time her siblings required. As a young woman, something special drove her to finish training runs that forced teammates, men and women, to drop out.
In the summer of 1998, something special compelled her to leave her husband and 1-year-old daughter to compete for three months in the United States.
And then in October of 2001 in Chicago, something special propelled her to one of the greatest achievements in running history. Six days after Japanese marathoner Naoko Takahashi became the first woman to break the elusive 2-hour, 20-minute barrier, Catherine Ndereba obliterated her world record with a time of 2 hours, 18 minutes, 47 seconds. Everyone on the international running circuit did a double take.
Her remarkable record looks as followed:
1995 – Represented Kenya internationally for the first time at a women’s relay race in Seoul, Korea. Set a 10K personal record, 31:35, at the Richard S. Caliguiri/City of Pittsburgh Great Race.
1996 – Entered 18 races, won 13. Ranked No. 2 in USA Track and Field’s World Road Running Rankings; named Road Runner of the Year by Runner’s World magazine and Road Racer of the Year by Running Times. Finished third in the Pittsburgh Great Race. 1997 – Did not run. Gave birth to daughter Jane.
1998 – Named Road Runner of the Year by Runner’s World and Road Racer of the Year by Running Times. 1999 – Road racer of the year again, winning eight major events during a two-month span. Won individual bronze and team gold at World Half-Marathon Championships. Ran world’s fastest times at 5K (15:09), 15K (48:52), 12K (38:37) and 10 miles (53:07). Made marathon debut, finishing sixth at Boston in 2:28:27. Finally won the Pittsburgh Great Race with a time of 32:11, nipping American Libbie Hickman at the finish line. 2000 – Won Boston and Chicago marathons. Time in Chicago was 2:21:33, fifth-fastest ever. Won 11 other races, setting two course records.
2001 – Named Athlete of the Year by the international governing body for track and field, the IAAF. Won her second consecutive Boston Marathon. Entered 12 other American road races, won 11. Set world marathon record, 2:18:47, in winning Chicago Marathon. One week later, went to Budapest, Hungary, and won the Avon Global Championships 10K in 31:02, a personal record.
2002 – Finished second at Boston Marathon behind another Kenyan, Margaret Okayo.
2003 – Finished First, winning the gold metal at the World Championships.
2004 – Won the silver medal at the Olympics in Greece.
Most top Kenyan runners work for the government, but they aren’t supported the way athletes from the former Soviet bloc were. They are employed by one of three state agencies — the police, the army or the prisons — whose national contests are as competitive as the championships sponsored by the Kenya Amateur Athletic Association, the country’s governing body for track and field.
Some runners compete well enough in secondary school to get job offers from these agencies when they graduate. Catherine didn’t, but she trained locally in Nyeri for several years and gradually improved. By 1994, she was competing well enough that all three agencies were interested in hiring her. She took a month to decide whether to pursue a running career or try to become a teacher. Once she decided to run, she considered just as carefully her three options.
She couldn’t see herself as a police officer or soldier. That left the prisons, about which she knew nothing. Mwaniki’s wife ran for the prisons, and she set Catherine’s mind at ease. Unlike many former Soviet athletes, Kenyans with government jobs are expected to actually work. So Catherine entered a seven-month training program at prisons college.
Two months after graduation, Catherine represented Kenya in international competition for the first time. The next year, she just missed making the 1996 Kenyan Olympic team in the 10,000 meters, but she compensated by winning so many road races that both Runner’s World and Running Times magazines named her Road Racer of the Year.
She meet her husband Anthony at the college and they were married that year as well.
Others have won big races while juggling their careers with family obligations. Several, including 1996 Olympic silver medalist Pauline Konga, have achieved their greatest athletic success after getting married and giving birth. Many are personable, photogenic and popular.
But no one else has combined such a breath-taking performance with an ability to make casual acquaintances feel like life-long friends and a husband who gladly — and visibly — supports her career and helps raise their daughter.
This unprecedented combination has turned Catherine Ndereba and her husband, Anthony Maina, into influential role models. They represent the modern Kenyan couple — and a whole new way for men and women to regard each other in Kenyan society.
Paul Kibbi Tergat (born 1969) is considered as one of most successful long-distance runners of all time. He currently holds the world record in the marathon: in 2003 in Berlin he completed the marathon (traditionally 42 kilometers) in 2:04:55, which is an average speed of 12.6 miles per hour or 20.3 km/hour! During his career, he won a long list of gold, silver and bronze medals in running competitions around the world. His nickname is “The Gentleman”. Since 2004, Tergat is an ambassador for the UN World Food Program. This program provided Tergat with lunch at school, as his parents were too poor to send him to school with food. Tergat says he could not have finished school without this food program. In 2005, he also founded the Paul Tergat Foundation which supports disadvantaged sports people in Kenya. He also runs a sports PR and marketing firm.
Mutula Kilonzo
Date of Birth: 2nd July, 1948
Place of Birth: Mbooni, Makueni District
Status: Married with children
Address: P.O. BOX 59839 Nairobi
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