Thierry Ndikumwenayo’s life is like a mountain stage of the Tour. Up and down. His origins are in Burundi, one of the poorest countries in the world, where he spent his childhood as the fifth in a family of six brothers and three sisters who lived off his parents’ grocery store. Hope when he found in Alicante, in 2015, a group in which the coach, Llorenç Solbes, welcomed athletes from disadvantaged countries. Until the coach went to work in Qatar, the pandemic arrived and Thierry found himself completely alone. His club, Playas de Castellón, encouraged him to go a few kilometers further up; and in Castellón he spent eight months at the home of one of his coaches, Tomás Fandiño. The Galician treated him the same as his little daughter. Love back and forth. But there were still tough slopes. The long wait until receiving Spanish nationality. The xenophobic insults in the sewers of social networks after each success of this reserved and very polite boy. The lesions. But a pleasant spring afternoon in Oslo seems to have changed his luck. On the penultimate day of May he ran at the Bislett Games, a cathedral of athletics, and achieved fourth place in the 5,000 meters with a mark (12m 48.10s) that is the second best in Europe of all time.
This record, one week before the European Championship, which will be held at the Olympic Stadium in Rome from June 7 to 12, raises his aspirations in the two events he will compete in: the 5,000, this Saturday, and the 10,000, on next Wednesday. “It was a surprise, really. I was thinking of running in 12m55s or so, not going below 12m50s. It’s surprising because we were in May and we hadn’t worked yet to be so fast. But it is clear that we are on the right track.”
Ndikumwenayo, like many athletes, uses the first person plural to refer to himself and his coach. The man who has directed his sporting career since 2020 is Pepe Ortuño, a retired teacher who was one of the founders, in 1981, of the Castellón Athletics Club, today the best club in Spain. Ortuño saw up close disgusting cases of racism that he tried to hide from his athlete. Like the owner of that roadside bar who told him that he wouldn’t serve him if he went with a black boy. But he couldn’t protect him from everything. And when his successes came, such as the victory in the Spanish Cross Country Championship, the national record of five kilometers (13m 17s) or a great mark in 10,000 (27m 26.52s), running almost alone in Castellón, his city, Thierry looked at the comments on social media and put his hands on his head. “The first two days I was a little sad. But Pepe and my teammates encouraged me and now I have understood that those who criticize are poor people.”
Ndikumwenayo already has a callus. He has been fighting all his life. Shortly after arriving in Spain, in 2015, he traveled to Istanbul with Playas de Castellón. On his return, after having won the race, they stopped him at the airport and did not let him fly. “He already lived here and had a three-month visa, but he couldn’t leave. He could only enter the country once, but we had not seen that.” The fact is that, incomprehensibly, all of his colleagues went through the checkpoint. Jesús Montiel, one of the technicians, left him alone. Middle distance runner Nacho Fontes stayed with him until the last moment. But he had to leave him or he would miss the flight. That 18-year-old boy suddenly found himself alone at the Istanbul airport, with a phone that he couldn’t use and 15 euros in his pocket. He did not know what to do. At night, after eating a croissant and drinking tea, the only thing he had all day, they kicked him out of the airport. Ndikumwenayo, chilled and having nowhere to go, ended up sleeping on the street, in the open, in the middle of the sidewalk. The next day he got on the first bus that passed through the door. “At the end of the journey, the driver told me that he had to get me off. I don’t even know where he stopped. Maybe it was Istanbul, but I don’t know.” The athlete looked for a place to connect to the internet for five euros. Thus he contacted Solbes and his representative, who recommended that he look for the embassy and apply for a visa. In the end they managed to pay for a hotel for him and he stayed there for just a week until he got permission to leave the country and return to Spain.
The athlete prospered and, after a few years, managed to buy his parents a house in Kiryama, his town. “My goal has always been to help my family. What will it be if not?” Now another opportunity awaits him to continue growing as an athlete. “Let’s see if I can win some medals in Rome,” says the Tiger, as he likes to call himself. “I’m very well. In Oslo I had brutal feelings, but I think I can improve even more. The European record (held by Mo Katir with 12m 45.01s)? Who knows…”. On Friday he will adjust his headphones, play some reggaeton and warm up. Then he will go out and try to beat Jakob Ingebrigtsen and the rest of the rivals in the 5,000 final.
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