David Rudisha: I gained too much weight due to parte after parte
Double Olympic 800m champion and world record holder David Lekuta Rudisha will be seeking to hit a title hat-trick in the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games if everything sticks to plan.
However, before that, Rudisha says he first has to shed off a significant number of kilos he put on as a result of partying so often for the last two years, a habit he picked up during the spells he was nursing injuries.
But that wasn’t the only reason that led him to lose focus and add weight –he had to cope with a lot more problems just around the same time.
As he was keenly nursing the injuries, his marriage to Lizzy Naanyu, the mother of his two children, crumbled leading them to separate.
A few months later, in May 2019, Rudisha lost his father, Daniel, himself a former Olympic medalist.
To ease the pressure on himself, Rudisha who recently spoke to BBC, said he turned into a little bit of partying.
Right to enjoy
“I have never really directly spoken about partying but you know just a social life that everybody has the right to enjoy. Whenever we have a (athletes) meet, sometimes we got to socialize. That’s is normal life. I never meant anything extreme. Sometimes when you have friends, you go out and throw (a) party and so forth,” he said.
However, in an interview with Spikes magazine back in October last year, Rudisha opened up about the partying lifestyle he had adopted to release the pressure he felt from his on-and-off-track issues.
“With everything else going on in my life, the pressure sometimes got to me. To release it I’d often hang out with friends, partying too much. It’s not something you intend to come your way but sometimes during periods like that, you look for a bit of distraction to distract yourself,” he said.
But four months ago, since getting back to training properly after over two-and-half years of recurring injuries and off-track issues, Rudisha feels he has started getting back in shape as he eyes to make the team that will be heading to Tokyo, Japan in July.
“A month ago, I was heavier weighing 89 kg but now I am losing the weight and the response is pretty good. I am at 80 kg now and the target is 75 kg because it’s the weight I had when I won in London in 2012,” he offered.
Rudisha, now 31, won his first Olympic gold medal in London 2012 shattering the world record with a time of 1:40.91. He defended his title in the Rio De Janeiro Olympics with a much slower time of 1:41.15. He hasn’t been able to compete competitively since July 2017 having had to deal with a long term tendon injury that attaches to the sitting bone.