Italian critic of Athletics Kenya charged with being in Kenya illegally

photo: Scott Douglas

Monsignor Renato Canova was arrested in Iten, Rift Valley province, Kenya on Wednesday and has now been formally charged for being in Kenya illegally.

The Keiyo OCPD Anjelus Karuru told reporters on Wednesday after Canova’s arrest that, “we arrested him this(Wednesday) morning and took him to court to answer charges relating to his work permit.”

Renato Canova is not just another “has-been know-it-all” european looking for greener pastures in Africa when the going gets tough in the West. He is a well respected middle and long distance running coach with an impressive list of runners under his stable or have trained with him in the past to reach the highest levels in world athletics, as this interview he did in 2005 with Mens’ Racing shows. There is also a brief Wikipedia entry about him that describes who the man is.

His technical style reminds me of the long time Starehe Boys Center athletics coach Wesonga (I don’t remember his first name) which consisted of quite a varied series of interval training – multiple sprint bursts in 100 meters, then 200 meters and finally 400 meters no matter what your specialty was. This was done to develop stamina, speed and muscular strength. Yours truly was one of his students on the track as was Paul Ereng and many others. A bit of trivia, did you know that Paul Ereng was a sprinter first before he found his “home” in the 800 metres?

Canova has become a visible critic of Athletics Kenya. He recently said that, “We should not copy Ethiopia and other countries since Kenya has immense talent and individuals should not be suppressed,” and it now seems like Athletic Kenya did not take very well to that.

The AK chairman responded by saying, “We are not copying Ethiopia. Our main aim is to put together a strong Kenyan team for the Olympics. The athletes are quite happy.”

It is totally unprofessional when Athletics Kenya takes offence rather than engaging in open dialogue in a situation such as this. Having worked in corporate America for longer than I care to think about and in the super-heated IT world, I have seen VERY good managers and VERY bad managers.

A good manager KNOWS his or her weak point and the moment someone notices it and mentions it to him or her, that person becomes a star in the manager’s books and is immediately empowered to drive that problem to resolution.

A bad manager will take offence and will frustrate you out of a job in short order.

Organisations that succeed notice, engage and then empower contrarians – with good judgment of course!

Athletics Kenya is not being run by a good manager. Example – read this conversation on letsrun and decide for yourself. The glory that comes to AK and Kenya are mostly the result of the vast pool of talent Kenya has and the hard work these individual athletes put into their craft. These two scenarios should not be mixed up. I will argue that if AK was lifted out of the picture, the supremacy of Kenyan athletes will remain unchanged and perhaps might even increase.

The argument that AK is supressing athletes’ potential by offering a collective, cookie-cutter training regimen for world-class runners instead of individualized specialized training as they prepare for the Beijing olympics is valid. But when AK responds by arresting Canova on a preposterous charge in order to find a “clean” way to eject him out of the country, I can confidently say, “I told you so,” when I cautioned that athletes like Pamela Jelimo are seen as gold mines and not individual professionals with individual customised needs as Canova was trying to say.

It is preposterous that a Nigerian national with a questionable background regarding his wealth can come to Kenya on a visitor visa, live in Kenya for years, invest Kshs. 350 million (USD$ 5.5 million), be caught in a legal dragnet, manage to come out of it and no one thinks nothing of it while a highly-regarded world-class athletics coach doing real work that brings glory to Kenya dares talk the truth about the goings-on in Athletics Kenya, is roughed up with such indignity. Canova will most likely be headed back home soon and in the process denying the athletics community access to an invaluable resource that is not easily duplicated because I don’t think that if this AK’s way to silence him, it is not going to work. He has too much dignity to be intimidated.

AK chairman Isaiah Kiplagat told reporters that, “As a council member of the IAAF, I’m not aware that Canova is a registered coach of the IAAF.”

Did he just find out about his status or did this come after Canova’s recent critical comments?

This is a very sad day for Kenyan athletics and the Kenyan judicial system and a huge loss and disruption to the Kenyan running community.

I’m sure there are real people doing real work, totally unknown to the outside world both in Athletics Kenya and the Kenyan judicial system and this blog applauds all the work they do. This critique of the leadership in Athletics Kenya is in no way meant to discredit their hard work.