Henry Rono broke four world records in just 81 days in 1978 as a Washington State University runner, beginning a stretch of track milestones that led to Rono being named Pac-12 Track and Field Athlete of the Century.
Rono will be honored with the dedication of a bronze statue at 11 a.m. Friday, April 24, at Mooberry Field on the WSU Pullman campus. The ceremony will take place before the Cougar Classic track meet.
Rono, a 1981 WSU graduate, died Feb. 15, 2024, in Nairobi, Kenya, at the age of 72.
A pioneer among Kenyan runners, he couldn’t walk until he was six due to an injury as a toddler. Rono, known as the “Nandi Warrior” after the Nandi Hills around his home village of Kiptaragon, arrived in Pullman on an athletic scholarship in 1976 after being recruited by John Chaplin (’63 Geog.), WSU head track and field coach from 1973 to 1994.
Chaplin was instrumental in pushing for the commemorative statue’s placement in fall 2025.
Rono’s 1978 world records in less than three months — in the 3,000-meter, 5,000-meter, 10,000-meter, and 3,000-meter steeplechase — remain an unmatched achievement. He also won the NCAA Cross-Country Championship three times in 1976, 1977, and 1979, only the third runner with that accomplishment, after another WSU legend, Gerry Lindgren (’68 Poli. Sci.), and University of Oregon’s Steve Prefontaine.
Rono set the fastest 10,000-meter cross-country time in NCAA history in a 1976 victory, a record that still stands.
Rono set the fastest 10,000-meter cross-country time in NCAA history in a 1976 victory, a record that still stands. He was the NCAA steeplechase champion in 1978 and 1979, and then NCAA Indoor champion in the 3,000-meter in 1977.
In all, Rono still holds seven collegiate records and seven WSU records. He was a six-time All-American.
Beyond WSU, Rono won 10,000-meter and 3,000-meter steeplechase gold medals in the 1978 All-Africa Games. In 1981, he set another 5,000-meter world record in Norway, and also won gold medals in the 5,000-meter and 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Commonwealth Games in Canada.
Unfortunately, he never ran in the Olympics due to boycotts in the 1980s.
Among his other honors, in 1978 Rono was named athlete of the year from Track and Field News, track athlete of the year from Sport magazine, AP European Sportswriters sportsman of the year, and North America winner of Helms Athletic Foundation World Trophy. He later was inducted into the WSU Athletics Hall of Fame, and named Pac-12 Track and Field Athlete of the Century.
