His success in Mexico might have been all the greater had it not been for the fact that he ran all three of his races with a serious gall bladder infection.

The 10,000m was his first race. He led until two laps to go, when he suddenly collasped off the track onto the infield holding his stomach. When stretcher-bearers arrived, Keino leapt to his feet and insisted on finishing the race. He was disqualified, however, for having left the track.

Doctors adviced him to pull out of the Games. Keino, then 28, refused. Four days later he took the silver medal behind Tunisia's Mohamed Gammoudi in the 5,000m.

Then came the day of the 1,500m. Keino got caught in a traffic jam, jumped out of the car he was travelling in and ran the last mile to the stadium. It turned out to be the warm-up he needed. Later, Keino would recall the passion that he held in his heart as the race started: "I was thinking, 'this is the race of my life'. If I die, I die here."

His pace was so fast that everyone expected him to blow out. He did not. His winning time, of 3mins 34.9sec was an Olympic record and just shy of the world record held by the man more than 12 yards back in second, James Ryun, of the US.

Taking the high altitude of Mexico into consideration, Keino had run 5 seconds inside his world altitude record. It was an amzing performance.

On the same day back in Kenya, Keino's wife Phyllis gave birth to their third daughter. She was named Milka Olympia in his honour.

The couple would later set up a home at a farm called Kazi Mingi in kenya's Western Highlands, where they raised more than 200 orphaned or abandoned children. Keino was driven to that calling by an incident that had happenend in the early 1960s, when, during a tour of duty with the police on Kenya's northern border, he came across three wandering children.

"They were starving. They were eating soil," Keino recalled. Like the painful memories of the beatings he received from his uncle as a child, the image of those children never left him.

A cattlke herder in his youth, Keino, like so many of his fellow Kenyans, liked to run. He made his first international impression when he finished fifth in the 5,000m at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964. By 1965 he was touring the world's athletics meetings and became a popular and familiar figure.

His trademark was an orange cap with ear flaps. He would wear it in races and leave the flaps down until he entered the home straight, at which point he would whip up the flaps and sprint to the line, his face beaming in a broad smile.

In 1972, he turned professional and made a good living racing for money. Back home, he also opened a sports good s shop to help fund the children's home.

The tribal society of Kenya meant little to Keino when it came to the youngsters, who were Boran, Kikuyu - the tribe that came to the world's notice through the writing of Karen Blixen - Luo, Marakwet and Meru.

"They're all my children," said Keino. "I don't know any different."

CRAIG LORD
The Times