Emmanuel Wanyonyi, the young Kenyan 800m runner, was one step away from an Olympic gold medal at Paris 2024 … Claudio Berardelli, his coach, thought about what to say to him
February 20, 2025
Emmanuel Wanyonyi, the young Kenyan 800m runner, was one step away from an Olympic gold medal at Paris 2024. He had just breezed through his semi-final and his coach, Claudio Berardelli, was planning to meet up for some words of wisdom and encouragement before the following day’s final. He had not seen him for some days, as he was his personal coach, rather than accredited coach to the Kenyan team.
In a taxi to meet his 20 year old protege, Berardelli thought about all the smart things he could say. What should he advise as tactics, who should he look out for, and what would be the plan B if that didn’t work?
When they met, Wanyonyi was buzzing. “I felt great. I’m ready” he proclaimed. “How will you run the final?” asked the coach. “Fast. I will go through half-way in 49 seconds, nobody will catch me”. Berardelli was tempted to start talking options, but decided that mentally, his athlete was ready. “Keep it simple, don’t confuse him. He’s confident, he’s ready” he concluded.
The Olympic Men’s 800m Final. 10 August 2024, Paris.
Wanyonyi led out around the first lap as expected, the field happy to let him set the pace. But then with 300m to go, home favourite Gabriel Tual put in a huge burst, but the Kenyan wasn’t finished and fought to regain the lead. On the final bend, Marco Arop, the Canadian world champion, challenged as expected, but Wanyonyi held on down the final straight winning, by little more than the thickness of his vest.
“I have no idea how he held on to win” reflected his coach, it was his natural instinct, he is a champion. And now, aged 20, the Olympic champion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8X_TkiarKw
Claudio Berardelli was in Nürnberg, Germany this week, sharing this experience. He had joined me for the Adidas Global Running Day, a team event for the brand’s leaders, strategists, designers, marketers and more, to think about the future.
I was there to explore the future of business – strategy, innovation, marketing – and how the Adidas team could learn from the world’s best brands.
Berardelli coaches an elite group of runners – the 2 Running Club in Kapsabet, Kenya – which is sponsored by Adidas, and includes not only Wanyonyi but others like Evans Chebet, the Boston and New York marathon champion, and Sabastian Sawe, who well could be the next runner to go sub 2 hours, particularly with the latest Adidas Adizero Adios Evo supershoes.
He was there to give more inspiration about what it takes to be the world’s best, and learn from some of the world’s top athletes.
How he got started …
“I have a degree in sports science. I graduated in Milan, and then during my studies I got in touch with some people that at that time were working with one of the leading management agencies with East Africans. I started working with them first, spending a bit of time in Italy with some athletes coming for races in Europe. I was not a runner myself, I was a cyclist up to a junior level, so I didn’t know much about running, honestly speaking. Then when I arrived in Kenya in 2004 I kind of realised that if I wanted to learn the job of coaching, I had to probably stay here. And I’m still here. I’m still here learning. I mean, almost after 20 years and many things have happened. In 2016, I set up my own club, 2 Running Club, supported by Adidas and got married with a Kenyan and have two kids here. So basically, I’ve spent most of my adult life here and Kenya is home.”
About his running team …
“It’s an amazing experience and to have a group of athletes of such a level, but also a group of friends. I don’t know how to say it, but we really go together. Anyway, in 2015 I was from a different professional experience with another group, and then I was thinking of having a sabbatical year, like a year off. I have to think a little bit about myself, but then some of the athletes are with me, they’re like, No, no way you can leave us behind whatever you decide, but we are with you. And then I started thinking of creating a club and giving, I don’t know, an identity to a group and then of course, Adidas came in and I’m very happy for that. And yeah, I think what works here is that there is a strong sense of belonging to a project that goes beyond running. So we are here to work for a better future of course, running is what we do and the club is called 2 Running Club, basically, because two is the essence of togetherness, not the individual for the group and the group for individual, because I thought that the idea of being a champion is much more than just to be a number one. So based on this simple concept, we are trying to have our own philosophy on how we approached the job, how we stay together, we face the challenges and try to overcome them.”
On coaching the world’s best athletes …
“I think the most important thing with this level of talent is not to complicate things, and to make sure that you create the conditions to allow them to express what they have. So you see, I’m happy because despite having an academic background from Europe, I grew up here as a coach. So the first generation of Kenyan athletes I work with, basically, they coached me how to be a coach. I grew up with a different approach, where, of course, you need to have the scientific background and whatever, but then you have to create the conditions to allow them [the athletes] to express themselves and not to fix them maybe into some fixed pattern, you know, and my job is basically to help them with that. Okay, they’re allowed to make mistakes, because, of course, it’s part of the job, but we have to kind of remain inside the certain boundaries. And then, of course, to learn how to avoid mistakes, because, you know, the point here is not just to be good athletes, the point here now is to work on a career. For example, the market is asking now, I mean, they don’t just want someone who wins London, but they want someone who wins London, and maybe he comes back and gets another podium, then maybe he goes on to win again. So it’s not easy, but well, we’re here to try.”
His coaching approach …
“I don’t think maybe we can talk about the Kenyan method, because I think that where Kenyan athletes have reached today in terms of training, it’s a high standard. So maybe a little bit less based on instinct, like some years ago where it was just by depending on the talent. Today, you have professional groups and in fact, you can see the level of performance is very, very high. But I think more than a method maybe there is an approach on how they look at what is running. And, and this idea that, for example, being here in our place, if someone doesn’t tell you that this is a place where you have some of the best athletes in the world, you might wonder this can’t be a camp for professional athletes, but it is because they have this capacity to remain very humble, very connected to their background and those kinds of things. And this is how it works for them. For them, running is just a way of living. I mean, most of these guys have families around here, but they know they have to stay here; this is their second home.
For some European athletes, they tend to overthink, they tend to go into so much detail that maybe are not the priorities, and they chop and change. There’s quite a trend to think that you know people can follow one training principle and if it’s not immediately getting the results, then they might switch to some other approach. And they would change coaches quite regularly. And I mean, that happens anyway, of course, but you don’t get that so much here. You don’t have that kind of overthinking. They are very, how do you say? Fatalist? And if things happen, and they don’t give themselves at least mentally boundaries, like, say, Okay, who knows, maybe one day I can be the next record holder and they believe so.”
Physical v mental attitude …
“When we talk about the physiological characteristics, there’s no doubt that they’re talented. But I think that one of the main differences are their intrinsic motivations. They know that whatever they achieve with running will have a huge impact on many generations to come. Because if you think, for example, Amos Kipruto, most likely with his activity [running] he has, how can I say, fixed the life of the sister or the brother or the sister or the brother and then the children of the children of the children will kind of have a positive impact thanks to him. So I can imagine for how many generations, because they will go to better schools. So it’s quite an interesting thing and a huge responsibility for them. And they feel it.”
On motivation and success …
“I think that the training programme, the technical approach is probably a smaller percentage in the bigger scheme of what we do; what I always tell my guys is we have to make sure that each of you gets personal stability, which means financial stability, personal stability, families, whatever, because you can have all the talent you want, but this profession is very tough. Every day you have to find the reason why you’re waking up so early and if you have a lot of external factors that are interfering, you can’t make it, so in that little office of mine is where I go and listen to their family problems, financial problems and just being here with them.
This is coaching. They are individuals and each of them has a story, everyone has their issues, everyone has their problems that they have to deal with. This is also what makes this job very interesting and perhaps the problems that the athletes have in Kenya are slightly bigger or different to the athletes on a global scale.”
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