Sammy Wanjiru (1986-2011)

May 16, 2011 7:49 AM

24 year old Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru died yesterday in Nyahururu, Kenya after "falling" from a balcony. Sammy set a world record for the half marathon of 58:53 in the United Arab Emirates in 2007, only to best it again two months later in the Netherlands, with a 58:35. He won five marathons, setting an Olympic record of 2:06:32 in 2008, and a personal best of 2:05:10 in London in 2009. He might be best remembered for his dramatic win in Chicago in 2010.

From the HuffPo story: Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere also said initial reports indicated Wanjiru killed himself, though a local official offered a different account.

"Wanjiru came home with another woman friend at around 11:30 p.m. and then when his wife came home and found them she inquired who the lady was," area police chief Jasper Ombati said. "They got into an argument. His wife locked them in the bedroom and ran off.

"He then jumped from the bedroom balcony. He is not here to tell us what he thinking when he jumped. We do not suspect foul play. In our estimation we think he wanted to stop his wife from leaving the compound."

posted by roomthreeseventeen (28 comments total)

What..by landing on her?
posted by spicynuts at 7:55 AM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Compound"?
posted by Nomyte at 8:04 AM on May 16, 2011

According to the video here, he jumped from a balcony on the first floor (aka the second floor) of his house in an attempt to reach his wife before she got to the gate of the property. That seems like a jump someone might try without expecting or wanting to die, and also like a jump that could kill you if you're really unlucky.

The video also shows what the property looks like. It's got a big security wall - hence, compound.
posted by thirteenkiller at 8:06 AM on May 16, 2011

"In late December, he was charged with threatening his wife and a maid with an illegally-obtained AK-47 rifle."

It seems like he had a history of making bad choices.
posted by demiurge at 8:07 AM on May 16, 2011

> What..by landing on her?

> It seems like he had a history of making bad choices.

What is it, attack of the unsympathetics today? Some promising 24-year old comes to a very sad end and this is the best we can do?

Well, I never heard of him before, but I'm sad about it and I'll mourn him.

.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:11 AM on May 16, 2011 [5 favorites]

I am very sympathetic to lives in turmoil and bad choices. But waving about an AK-47 really dampens my sympathy *a lot*. OTOH, I'll give you that in some cultures/places they are common as mud and waving one about might be on the order of slamming a door.

It does sound like he might have been extraordinarily unlucky w.r.t. the actual death though.
posted by Bovine Love at 8:21 AM on May 16, 2011

I'm sad about it too, but it doesn't look like this was an isolated incident. It's always a shame when someone doesn't have the chance to turn their life around.
posted by demiurge at 8:22 AM on May 16, 2011

I was ready to be saddened, but it also sounds like the guy may have been abusive and generally Not Nice. So I'm settling for filing it under "wasted potential."
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:23 AM on May 16, 2011

I think it's definitely sad, not only for the marathon/running world (Sammy was set to tackle the marathon world record, possibly next fall), but also for his 2 year old and 4 year old children.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:26 AM on May 16, 2011

What is it, attack of the unsympathetics today? Some promising 24-year old comes to a very sad end and this is the best we can do?

Get over yourself. I can be sympathetic and still question the news account at the same time.
posted by spicynuts at 8:30 AM on May 16, 2011

[W]hen his wife came home and found them she inquired who the lady was

I imagine she wasn't quite so polite about it as all that, unless this is a quirk in the translation of the chief's statement.
posted by antifuse at 8:34 AM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

What is it, attack of the unsympathetics today?

No, just people who think actions have consequences... It's hard to feel sorry for someone who is not just stupid, but appears to be aggressively stupid.
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 8:38 AM on May 16, 2011

.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:40 AM on May 16, 2011

.
posted by hippybear at 8:41 AM on May 16, 2011

2010 Chicago Marathon finish
The greatest marathon ever run
Science of Sports obit
LetsRun obit
posted by djb at 8:44 AM on May 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Africa is a very different place. If you have money or are a celebrity, living in a secured compound and having an AK-47 are completely reasonable - in fact, you'd be suicidal if you didn't take pretty serious safety precautions. Waving one around is definitely a Bad Thing but still a completely different act from waving an assault rifle around in the US.

The fact is that the only bad thing that I personally was able to find about him is that six months ago he was accused of threatening his wife with a gun - something he denied vigorously - but even if he did it, celebs do a lot worse than that (as in discharging firearms in public), in the US (a much less dangerous place) and this only becomes a tiny detail in their lives when they die. Forget about your Puffy Combs popping off in a nightclub, Burroughs shot his wife in the head, and yet it's only a detail in threads about Burroughs.

He was a promising man who could have contributed much more to his country and his continent and instead died far too young and stupidly - he's certainly paid for any mistakes he made in full and with interest.

.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:48 AM on May 16, 2011 [6 favorites]

Wanjiru was an amazing talent - almost without question the greatest marathon runner today (remarkably, he was only the 10th fastest Kenyan marathoner, but the smart money would have picked Wanjiru over any of them or all of them in a race), but he had some major personal problems. His married life was a disaster and he was widely reported to have problems with alcohol.

I always assumed that his personal demons would get the better of him and he'd be unable to perform at at top level as a result (or his aggressive style of running would burn out his body). I never figured this. It's a tragedy on every level. I wish things had turned out differently.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:55 AM on May 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

The "compound" is the least interesting part of this story. Everywhere I slept in Guatemala was in a walled compound with an armed guard, several houses arranged around some common garden (or parking) area, with barbed wire (or broken glass) across the top of an at-least-10-foot-high wall, and a Guatemalan army veteran with a pistol, or perhaps a shotgun and real-live bandolier. The Coca-Cola delivery truck had a guy riding shotgun (really riding shotgun). Gas stations had three or four guards.
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:01 AM on May 16, 2011

His married life was a disaster and he was widely reported to have problems with alcohol

Yet he was often found running with the right crowd.
posted by hal9k at 9:08 AM on May 16, 2011

Could he have been drunk at the time? The balcony wasn't that far from the ground, a fit man might expect to make such a leap without damage, but if he was intoxicated he might have stumbled, slipped or something which ensured a bad fall. This is sad.
posted by dabitch at 9:33 AM on May 16, 2011

Yeah, a "compound" is a pretty reasonable way to describe the way that most well-off people live in Kenya.

And:

unless this is a quirk in the translation of the chief's statement

Oh, I'm quite sure the guy speaks English. It's just that Kenyan authorities have a tendency towards... understatement? Kind of an attitude that's a combination of "boys will be boys" and "don't worry, everything's under control here." Which I guess is common for authorities the world over, but there it extends to stuff that would just be crazy anywhere else. Like... brandishing an AK and jumping off a ledge, for instance.
posted by rkent at 9:46 AM on May 16, 2011

So probably not "planking", then.
posted by scruss at 10:02 AM on May 16, 2011

That's a shame... amazing athlete.
posted by ph00dz at 10:24 AM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Waving one around is definitely a Bad Thing but still a completely different act from waving an assault rifle around in the US.

I'm pretty sure bullets, stray or otherwise, can kill you even in Kenya.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 1:10 PM on May 16, 2011

"Compound"?

compound (n.) 1679, from Du. (kampoeng) or Port., from Malay kampong "village, group of buildings." Spelling infl. by compound (v.). Originally, "the enclosure for a factory or settlement of Europeans in the East," later used of S. African diamond miners' camps (1893), then of large fenced-in spaces generally (1946).

The word is common throughout the former British Empire and is often used in English to describe the walled or fenced properties in many parts of the world. It is rarer in American English, where it primarily describes very large, private, and often expensive gated properties, e.g. the Bush compound (Walker's Point, Maine). But due to the risk of burglary and/or kidnapping, these are common security measures taken by middle-class and up homes in practically all the developing world, and the English word typically describes them wherever they are. Is this really that confusing?
posted by dhartung at 1:50 PM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wanjiru lived in an area where a good salary for a business manager is around $4-5000/year. And yet, he earned a half million dollars in each of the last two seasons (by winning the World Marathon Majors) on top of all of his actual race winnings. Those would often top $100,000.

I've been watching him for years, including his career in Japan as a teenager. He was a warm, devout, sincere man, like so many Kenyan athletes. The gun/threatening charge was shocking, but this is appalling. His life was so full of promise, but it completely went off the rails.

I have a copy of the 2008 Olympic Marathon as it aired on the BBC. The announcers were sure his pace was (sorry) suicidal, but it turned out to be the bravest, most amazing marathon... possibly the best ever. I can watch it over and over as an example of supreme athletic effort, but now I'm not sure I'll watch it again.

So very sad.
posted by letitrain at 1:54 PM on May 16, 2011

"Compound"? ... t primarily describes very large, private, and often expensive gated properties ...

As per a similar discussion vis-a-vis the 'Bin Laden Compound.'

Kennedy Compound, Bush Compound, Gates Compound.

posted by ericb at 2:06 PM on May 16, 2011

"In late December, he was charged with threatening his wife and a maid with an illegally-obtained AK-47 rifle."

Was he convicted?

Wanjiru was by all accounts an extremely talented runner; he's well-known in Japan for running throughout high school, and even knows a fair bit of Japanese. Regardless of the circumstances behind his death, this is a tragedy for both his family and the sport.
posted by armage at 4:11 PM on May 16, 2011