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Vienna City Marathon:

After Vienna course record Samwel Mailu vows to help Kenyan talents

Samwel Mailu was glued to the TV screen in Kenya when in October 2019 his
idol Eliud Kipchoge broke the two hour marathon barrier in Vienna's Prater
Park. The sensational achievement made worldwide headlines. It was exactly
on the same stretch of road in the Prater, where Samwel Mailu broke away
from his remaining rivals on Sunday during the 40th Vienna City Marathon.
"But I did not think about Eliud in this moment as I was not aware that it
was exactly on this road where he was running in 2019," said Samwel Mailu.
With around 10 kilometers left in the race the 30 year-old went on to break
the nine year-old course record of the Vienna City Marathon with a time of
2:05:08 in warm conditions.

Amazingly the final kilometer of the race was Samwel Mailu's fastest on
Sunday. Despite the final section of the Vienna City Marathon being less
flat than the roads in the Prater Park the Kenyan stormed through the 42nd
kilometer in a breathtaking 2:44! This is a pace much faster than Eliud
Kipchoge ran in Vienna back in 2019. While it was of course just one
kilometer it still indicates that there is much more to come from Samwel
Mailu. "In the future I hope to be able to run 2:03 in the marathon and
around 58 minutes in the half marathon," he said. Looking ahead towards the
autumn season Vienna's winner added: "I would like to run one of the major
races and I would prefer a flat course like Berlin." Last autumn he ran his
first marathon when he was entered as a pacemaker in Frankfurt. He carried
on and finished second in 2:07:19.

"On Sunday running in warm conditions suited me, because I grew up in an
area where it is warmer," said Samwel Mailu, whose parents are vegetable
farmers. He grew up in a village called Ulawani, which is located not far
from the Tanzanian border and Mount Kilimanjaro. He did not live in high
altitude and in contrast to many world-class athletes from Kenya running to
school did not form the basis for his career. "My school was just about one
kilometer away from our home. I became interested in running when I saw my
fellow-pupils competing in school championships. I was 15 years old when I
started training at primary school", explained Samuel Mailu, who then moved
to a different part of Kenya when he switched to high school. "There I
lived about even kilometers away from the school, but I often took the bike
to get there."

Samwel Mailu says that he then did not train for three years but re-started
when he was doing a college course to become a primary teacher. "I competed
at the national teachers' championships in 2019 and won the 1,500, the
5,000 and the 10,000 metres." Instead of taking up a teachers' job he then
decided to try running again. "I met my present coach Dickson Ngei and
started training seriously in 2020, when I moved to his training camp in
Machakos southeast of Nairobi where we train in an altitude of up to 2000
metres. We are eleven runners and our coach still competes as well. He was
second in the Kilimanjaro Marathon this year."

While Samwel Mailu's international career is still at the beginning he
already thinks about helping others to start a career in athletics as well.
"In the area where I grew up football and other ball games dominate while
running has not much significance. This is why I decided to organize a 10k
running event there in Ulawani." The race will take place at the beginning
of May. "We will help some young athletes by paying their school fees and
try to guide them," explained Samwel Mailu, who has two brothers and two
sisters. "One of my sisters was really talented, but unfortunately she did
never start training. There are many talents in the area where I come from
and I would like to help bringing them up."

For more information please visit: www.vienna-marathon.com

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