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Olympic marathon champion Kiprotich ready for Rio Olympics

Xinhua, March 10, 2016 Adjust font size:

Reigning Olympic marathon champion Stephen Kiprotich said training in Kenya has helped improve his endurance and focus as he prepares to defend his crown in Rio in August.

However, lack of competition in his native Uganda, has left him exposed to manipulation from rival athletes, because his country has very few athletes able to compete at the higher level.

"I have to do it on my own. There are no strategies you deploy other than running in the pack and hope you will be strong enough to sprint in the final straight to beat the opposition," he said on Wednesday from Eldoret.

He is in a training camp in Eldoret with Geoffrey Kamworor, the Beijing world 5,000m silver medalist and London marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge.

"I have to believe in myself and that is why I train hard and compete sparingly to preserve myself for the championships. I am all alone but training with Kenyans has really helped me," he said.

But Kiprotich said that now that he has broken the duck and gone on to win at the Olympics, anything is possible and Uganda can produce more athletes to compete at the international stage.

"I hope to see more Ugandan runners qualify for the marathon at the 2016 Olympics. Winning a marathon requires a lot of tactics. As a country, we need more marathoners at the World Marathon Majors (WMM) because normally, it is countries with a wider sample size of runners that win," he said. Endit