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On Sunday, Nairobi will be one of 24 cities worldwide hosting a global running campaign dubbed “IAAF Run 24:1.”
Launched last year by the Association of International Athletics Federations (IAAF), the IAAF Run 24:1 celebrates the “Global Running Day” and seeks “to inspire and motivate people to experience the excitement of running,” according to the global track and field governing body.
Sunday's s one-mile (just over 1.6 kilometres) run will be organised by Athletics Kenya at the Nairobi National Park from 9am, in tandem with 23 other similar races across five other continents, and will be open to everyone across all age groups.
“At the IAAF, promoting physical activity sits at the heart of what we are in business to do. We all need to do more to make running a lifestyle choice. We all want to get the world to move and we need to grow our base of regular runners,” IAAF CEO Jon Ridgeon was quoted as saying, just yesterday, at the first IAAF Global Running Conference, in Lanzhou, China.
The conference also celebrated the launch of this year’s IAAF Run 24:1 project.
Creating a global running and wellness culture is right down Bob Verbeeck’s alley.
A former Olympian, Belgian Robert “Bob” Verbeeck, 58, launched Golazo — a sports, media and entertainment company — in 2007.
Currently, Golazo has 45 companies in 12 cities across seven European countries with major operations in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, inter alia, and a huge interest in Kenya, where Verbeeck has focused on athlete management but is slowly also angling towards events.
He is currently planning on organizing mass participation races to run in Kenya later this year.
Golazo’s wide portfolio includes personal and corporate well-being, digital sports marketing, athlete representation, hospitality and award nights.
Healthier, more active world
Golazo also organises the Memorial Van Damme track and field meeting — the last competition on the annual IAAF Diamond League series — at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels.
The Belgian’s main goal is “to develop a healthier and more active world,” with Golazo’s mission, aptly, being: “To make people move every day for at least 30 minutes. We believe that daily exercise is crucial in our quest towards a healthier world.”
He describes himself as “passionate” with what Golazo is doing as a company.
“I’m curious about the world and I try do all my activities with respect to others wherever they are in the world, and I hope that when I pass away they say “he’s a nice guy that tried his best.”
Verbeeck observes that his company’s efforts have so far yielded a 65 percent participation rate, up from 40 percent among people who have embraced active lifestyles in Western Europe.
“In the region where we have been most active, in Belgium, we are now at one of the highest participation rates in Western Europe. We are now trying to take this to the UK, France, Germany, The Netherlands and the rest of Europe, and some initial steps to Africa.
“To me, in Africa, the logical step would be to start in Kenya because that’s the country I’m most attached to because of the history of friendship with some athletes that has lasted from the end of the 80s.”
A frequent visitor to Kenya (he, incidentally, leaves Nairobi for Brussels today after spending the last week at the Masai Mara Game Reserve on his latest tour), Verbeeck’s love affair with Kenya started in 1985 when he saw the possibility of encouraging Kenyan athletes to achieve more.
“I started running when I was a small boy aged 13, and it changed my life completely,” he dives into his sporting background.
“I started as a club runner, and because of my running, I was offered a scholarship to go to the US and there I met my first Kenyan friends, and a new world of running emerged after I met these Kenyans, including (former Chicago Marathon champion) Richard Keitany, Yobes Ondieki, Barnabas Korir…”
Other top Kenyans on track scholarships at the Iowa State University included Johnson Sirma, Moses Kiyai, Joseph Kipsang and Patrick Cheruiyot.
“My world changed as I was able to travel to Kenya at a very young age.
“After I finished my studies, I said ‘this sport has given me so much, why don’t I try to set up a company to stimulate youngsters to pick up sport,’ because sport can change their lives.
“I was living in a small Belgian town and, maybe, if I hadn’t gotten into sport, I could still be living in this small Belgian town — and actually you see the same thing with the Kenyan runners too, they are travelling all over the world and it’s thanks to the sport.”
The town he is referring to is Tessenderlo in the Belgian province of Limburg where he was born on August 5, 1960.
Verbeeck actually launched into events and sports business in October, 1990, starting Consultants in Sports (CIS), a sports marketing agency in Belgium.
This was after graduating with a degree in economics from the Iowa State University, at the end of a stellar running career that saw him bag a gold medal in the 3,000 metres at the 1985 European Indoor Championships in Pireaus, Greece, clocking eight minutes, 10.84 seconds.
He also made the semi-finals of the 5,000 metres at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, his personal best time over the distance being an impressive 13:24.73.
“At that time, we were doing some road races and some small cycling events but over the course of the years, we expanded into all sports and we are now in all sports, but mostly at a competitive and recreational level.”
“Golazo is a name that actually comes from Argentina, which means ‘a beautiful goal’, or ‘a goal scored in a wonderful way,’ which is what we try to do in our company — make beautiful goals for people by stimulating them to make daily exercise part of their life,” he explains to Nation Sport in an interview.
Currently, Golazo runs the largest mass football tournament in Belgium but has focused especially in running, walking and cycling, “because these are the three major mass participation sports in Europe.”
Athlete management portfolio
In the last few years, Golazo has been working a lot with technology, including integrating software applications and activity trackers to stimulate people to record how much they are involved in physical activity “to give them a goal every day.”
Golazo’s athlete management portfolio ensures the athletes managed “represent the goal of the company,” Verbeeck explains.
“The reason the company exists is we want to strive for a healthier society, so we look at them as ambassadors. We look for personalities that back our mission.”
Their big name stars over the years include Belgium’s former world number one tennis star, Kim Clijsters, with top Kenyan athletes to have run in the Golazo stable including retired steeplechase legends Paul Kipsiele Koech and Milcah Chemos, along with 2008 Olympic 800 metres champion Pamela Jelimo and Timothy Kitum, bronze medallist in the 800m at the 2012 London Olympics.
Golazo hasn’t been spared the doping scourge, with some athletes in the stable suspended for doping offences, the most recent being Kenya-born Bahraini marathon runner Eunice Kirwa, a 2016 Olympic marathon silver medallist, and world half marathon record holder Abraham Kiptum.
“For me there are two major concerns — betting and doping,” Verbeeck explains. “I’m a very strong believer that we need to have zero tolerance in both.
“I, therefore, find it incomprehensible that betting companies are sponsoring sports. Betting companies should stay out of sports and we should get laws passed to eliminate betting companies from sports, because this can corrupt sports.
“The same thing applies to doping. If people decide to cheat, I believe they should be banned from competitive sports activities.
“Within our company, when someone that we represent cheats, it’s in our contracts that we will stop any relationship with that athletes. But sports will not always be a solitary activity, and there will always be betting in sports or doping in sports… we just need to be strict with the guidelines.
“Athletics has gone through and is going through a very difficult time, and you can now see Russian athletes being prevented from competing because of doping.
“Every athlete has to take this very seriously and everybody needs to be a leading example, because you can be a great athlete without doping — it just takes hard work. If you work hard enough and long enough, you don’t need drugs.”
Verbeeck calls for more education and stricter controls to help in the fight against doping in Kenya.
“With regard to Kenya, there needs to be more and better organized controls and there also needs to be an educational programme for the athletes to guide them and explain to them that when they dope, they are actually putting the sport at risk, and putting their own job at risk, and — as is in the Russian case — the majority of athletes would be punished for the stupidity of some.”
Golazo is working out on rolling mass participation sports programmes in Kenya and Verbeeck is in talks with Athletics Kenya and potential sponsors with a view to launching soon.
“We are doing preparatory work in the beginning of this year and we hope to have some events in the latter part of the year,” he disclosed.
What would he like inscribed on his tombstone?
“I would like to be remembered for having made an impact on some peoples’ lives in a positive way, whether it’s through my actions, as a person, as a family man, as a friend and as an entrepreneur.
I’d like my impact to be positive,” he responds, after some deep thought and reflection.
His biggest disappointment in life? “Touch wood. I see every setback as a possibility to come back stronger. Honestly, in general terms, I’m a bit disappointed in the lack of respect by some people for others.”
Verbeeck and his wife, Heidi They have three children – Eva, Dreiss and Anna. He singles out Nelson Mandela and his role model. “Many people can learn from Nelson Mandela. From what he endured during his life and to react the way he did and lead the way he did is a good learning experience.
“He was such an inspirational person. He was an incredible visionary and at the same time respectful, and he acted that was until the end of his life.”
Definitely a tough act that Verbeeck would love to follow.
