At the 2011 Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique, a certain Julius Yego made history; he won Kenya a rare gold medal in field events, the javelin. For a country that has long been known for its long-distance runners, winning a medal in field events was considered a massive achievement.
That is how Yego, then only 22, announced himself to the world. The following year, he went on to win the African championship and qualified for the Olympic Games, the first ever Kenyan to do so in the javelin.
It was during this year that his nickname, ‘The YouTube man’ popped up. In an interview, he disclosed that he was a self-taught javelin athlete, using YouTube to watch videos and tutorials on the game.
He was without a coach or any proper training, but was already an African giant twice in a row and was headed to the Olympic Games. He finished a distant 12th, but the victory in itself was competing at the world’s biggest stage.
The next year, his star continued to shine as he qualified for his first ever World Championship, where he finished fourth, while setting a national record. In 2014, he went to the Commonwealth Games and bagged his first ever gold medal in a global competition.
The next year, 2015 was his biggest breakthrough, he was crowned world champion. The first ever Kenyan to win a world gold medal in the field events. He did so in style, setting an African and national record, going beyond the 90m mark for the first time in his career.
His star continued to shine and in 2016, participated in his second Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But this is where tribulation struck. On his second throw, he picked up an injury that hampered him for the rest of the competition. Good for him, his first throw of 88.24 was good enough to secure him a silver, but the scars of the second throw would take his career in a different direction.
He struggled with the injury for a while, and now, in an exclusive interview with Telecomasia.net, Yego opens up on how much he was scarred from that injury and reveals he almost quit the sport.
- Your injury period was very difficult and you struggled for a few years. Just how mentally exhausting was it for you?
- Sometimes it can be very tricky and difficult especially if you are not strong mentally, you can lose it. It was really tough for me especially when I felt like the injury was not going away. At some point, I thought of quitting. It was taking a toll on me mentally and I thought maybe, this was my time to exit the sport. I kept coming back and recurring the injury and this made me really worked up. It wasn’t an easy time for me.
- How did you overcome this period to get yourself back to track and competing again?
- I sought for inspiration from people who have been in the sport for long, the likes of Vivian Cheruiyot and Eliud Kipchoge. They have had consistent careers also filled with challenges but they remained consistent. Eliud particularly was one of those people I could talk to a lot and he told me not to give up. I was competing on returning and not doing well and it bothered me a lot. But he told me, I can never win all competitions. The consistency to compete at the highest level us all that maters. He told me to take it easy on myself, keep discipline and train well. That piece of advice really helped me a lot and shifted my mindset and I focused more on recovering and getting back to competing.
- Speaking about consistency, you have competed in this event for almost 15 years and have always been at the top competitions. What is the secret behind this consistency?
- It is all about discipline in training and your focus. Even when I was down with injury, I always told myself that I have to wake up and show up. Even when I was not doing well and the results were discouraging, I still had to push on. Sometimes you feel low, but you have to keep working. It is all about discipline and consistency as well as self-drive. In sport, especially ours, if you do not have self-drive, then it becomes very difficult to succeed.
- How difficult has it been to support yourself throughout these years?
- It has honestly not been easy. Majority of my career, I have supported myself in most of my programs. I had a contract with Mizuno for only three years up to 2017 but since then, after they left track and field, I have been self-sponsored without any external financial help.
I have been using what I acquired during that period to support my programs and my trainings and it is an expensive affair. It hasn’t been easy. However, we push on for the love of the sport.
- We haven’t seen so many javelin throwers rise up to try and take after you. There has been interest, but not many have reached your level. What do you think we can do to improve this?
- I think it all boils down to proper coaching. For now, we have the javelin implements which we acquired when we hosted the World U18 and U20 championships, but we have lacked a proper coaching chain.
Yes, we have the coaches coming up, but I still feel they are not doing the right coaching. I have been to South Africa and Finland so many times for training and if you see the kind of coaching they do, it is so much different from us. They incorporate technology, video analysis and many other things that we take for granted.
Video analysis is especially huge and that is one of the things I have embraced these days. Just take a video of yourself and then send to a coach who will be able to point you out on mistakes and what you need to improve.
I think the coaches should go for improved training and learn current trends and how to do things in a modern way. The sport is evolving and we have to adapt. Even for myself, I can’t train the same way I did in 2015.
The other issue for this sport is the fact that it is not common so you have to finance yourself most of it. It is not cheap and I think that is the other thing that pushes people away. If we had more sponsors coming in, I believe we will have many more world beaters.
- You have done this for 15 years now. How many more years do you see yourself going?
- Definitely a time will come for me to exit. The end point is almost there but the truth is I am not going anytime soon. For me, I just want to keep going for as long as I can compete at the highest level. I have achieved what not many people, including myself, thought I could ever achieve. I have managed to battle through injury and still remain here so I will keep going. But I know the time will come when I will have to stop and now enjoy watching other people.
- You are heading to your seventh World Championship. How are you prepared and what are you working on?
- I am happy that I have started this year very well and the progress has been good in all the competitions I have been in. At the moment I am trying to work on bettering a few things including technique. I also need to have some bit of speed because I have noticed I am slow on the runway. I need to have faster legs. I believe I am going in to Tokyo with a positive ambition to finish on the podium.
