Martin Lel, 29
BRONZE: Samuel Wanjiru, Kenya

Stony river. That's more or less what the word eldoret means in the Maasai language. The name comes from the nearby Sosiani, a rock-strewn tributary that runs near this city of 200,000 or so in Kenya's Rift Valley. But when you survey the landscape, water is not the first thing that comes to mind. No, that would be heat. The heat generated by a sun that glares down from a sky the color of washed-out Levi's, baking the red-dirt roads that cut the grass and scrubs like infinite slashes. This is the crucible that has forged Martin Lel.

Here, on roads more than a mile above the sea, the rail-thin Lel pounds out mile after scorching mile. Often, he runs alongside some of the world's best marathoners, like his countrymen Robert Cheruiyot, the four-time Boston winner, and Patrick Ivuti, last fall's Chicago Marathon The 2025 Marathon and Half Marathon Calendar.

Since 2003, he has run 16 major marathons and half-marathons, and he has won all but five. The victories include three London and two New York City marathons. Yet for Lel, the superhuman achievements of these past five years do not a career make. They are but a prelude to a crescendo, a high note that can only be struck in Beijing.

"The Olympics are different," Lel says. "I must win a gold medal for Kenya." Indeed, in a country that is to distance running what Cooperstown is to baseball, Kenya's rich athletic history--think Kip Keino, Henry Rono, and Paul Tergat--lacks one key piece of hardware: Olympic Marathon gold.

Lel, who will be making his first Olympic appearance, is focused on rectifying the situation. Along the way, however, he has hit some rough patches. Shortly after winning the New York City Marathon last November, Lel watched as political violence tore through the Rift Valley in the wake of Kenya's elections. Lel and his training group were forced to leave their home base of Eldoret. "We tried to carry on our running, but it wasn't good for us with the fighting going on. First, we escaped to a tea plantation in Kenya. Then in February, we went to Namibia."

Running in the West African nation proved difficult. Lel had lost fitness during the tumult, and the ongoing chaos in his homeland continued to exact a toll on him. "I was always checking the news before training. It was a lot of stress."

Still, it made for a good fitness boot camp. "It was hard, hard training. Namibia wasn't so flat as Kenya, and we had all the top runners there." By March, with a peace deal brokered, Lel returned to Eldoret, and the next month he set a course and personal record of 2:05:15 in the London Marathon.

In the race, he outdueled many of the same men he'll face in Beijing, including countryman Samuel Wanjiru, Moroccan Abderrahim Goumri, and American Ryan Hall. And since London, he's continued to improve his fitness. In particular, he's been using a steady diet of progression runs, ratcheting up the pace until he finishes in a virtual sprint. "It happens a lot in the marathon, so I try to practice this tactic."

Unlike Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie, the marathon world record holder who has said he won't run the event in Beijing due to air-quality concerns, Lel is not worried about the heat or pollution. "All of us must face the same conditions. If it's a problem, it's a problem for all of us."

Come August 24, millions of Kenyans will pin their dreams of gold to Lel. "It's so special, the chance to represent your homeland," he says. "It's very important for my country to do well in the Olympics. And for me to prove myself." Prove himself? Most would say he already has. But to firmly ensure his place, he must finally bring that missing medal home.


Medal Predictions

Marathon (August 24)
Did You Know
Published: Jul 23, 2008 12:00 AM EDT
Did You Know

What You Need to Know About the Sydney Marathon.


Did You Know?
In Beijing, Martin Lel expects fellow Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot, who's won a total of five Boston and Chicago marathons, to provide his biggest challenge. Their rivalry goes back for more than a decade. "When we were at Chemuswa Secondary School together in the Nandi Hills, I borrowed his bike and rode it for five kilometers," recalls Lel. Cheruiyot, he says, was not pleased. "He thought I was a thief and had taken the bike. He hit me in the back with a stick when I returned. Three times!" Despite the rocky start, the two runners became friends years later after Lel recognized his onetime assailant at a race. "It was Cheruiyot—I had never forgotten his face."