Citius Mag Podcast

“What I know is the aspect of being looked at differently because of our national heritage – in this case as Kenyan athletes who also happen to be Black in the United States of America. It’s real...One of the things that bothered me many times was that I would go and run a race and if it was a United States championship, they would say ‘Kenyan-born Sam Chelanga.’ What do you get by that? You get to tell people this is the real champion and this is not the real champion because he is Kenyan-born. My performance and my hard work go through the window.” Lots of people know of Sam from his success as a three-time NCAA cross country champion out of Liberty. He set the NCAA 10,000 meter record of 27:08.49 in the same race that Chris Solinsky broke 27 to set the American record. Those accomplishments came before he became an American citizen in 2015. It was something he wanted for a while and patiently waited out the process until it became official. As a professional, he had some success including being the alterna