Top runner Kabuu’s marriage collapses
Kenya’s top woman marathon runner Lucy Wangui Kabuu’s five-year marriage has hit the home stretch.
Ms Kabuu and husband/coach Jeremiah Maina have gone to the Nakuru High Court seeking to go their separate ways amicably.
The couple appeared before Lady Justice Abigail Mshila on Wednesday and successfully applied for time to iron out how they would share farms and multi-million rental properties in Laikipia, Nyahururu, Nyandarua, Nakuru and Nairobi.
Ms Kabuu is a celebrated athlete with deep pockets after winning international races in Japan, Scotland, Norway, Dubai and China, among many other countries. She told the court the differences between her and her husband were irreconcilable.
She also said her husband had shown no interest in looking after their daughter, born on May 31, 2010, and begged the court to grant her custody. She, however, promised to allow Mr Maina supervised access to the child.
LONG DISTANCE RUNNER
In response, Mr Maina said he was agreeable to her plea but urged the court to look into properties acquired during their marriage between 2009 to 2014.
Among these are two rental properties in Nyahururu’s Co-Site Estate and another in Nairobi’s Innercore that was bought by Ms Kabuu but developed jointly.
Born in 1984, Ms Kabuu specialised in long distance running in the 5,000m and 10,000m races.
She has represented Kenya at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece and in Beijing, China in 2008.
Ms Kabuu honed her running skills in Japan and her moment of glory came during the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia, where she won gold in the 10,000m and bronze in the 5,000m races.
She switched to road running in 2011, a year after the birth of her daughter. She won several half marathons, including the popular Delhi Half Marathon.
She made her full marathon debut in January 2012 in Dubai and finished second behind Ethiopian Aselefech Merga, who was defending the title. In April the same year she finished fifth in the London Marathon.
Additional reporting by David Macharia