In speeding 42.195km through the streets of Prague last weekend in two hours five minutes 39 seconds, Eliud Kiptanui leapt from obscurity into the 20 fastest marathoners of all-time.

The young Kenyan _ Kiptanui turns 21 next month _ ran virtually unaided, and produced an impressive negative split, running the second half of the race in 62:23, almost a minute quicker than his first half of 63:16.

More than that, Kiptanui revived the memory of an athlete who made regular appearances on the roads, over the country and on the track 20 years ago. This athlete did not have a name: he, never she in those days, was ‘the unknown African’.

Kenny Moore, as fine a track writer as there is, painted a wonderful word picture of the unknown African after one of the best of them _ Juma Ikangaa _ almost drained the snap, crackle and pop out of millions of Australian breakfasts with his audacious bid to upset Robert de Castella in the Brisbane 1982 Commonwealth Games marathon.

For me, it evokes fond memories of a wonderful home Commonwealth Games. ‘Deek’ was a training mate and on his way to becoming world champion. People such as Moore and British running legend Brendan Foster _ then, as now, working for the BBC _ came to Brisbane for the chance to do stories on him.

We wanted to meet them and, when we did, were doubly delighted to find that all they wanted to do was ask about ‘Deek’. A couple of us turned up to interview Foster one morning at his Brisbane motel _ he wound up buying breakfast and interviewing us. At the conclusion of each day’s athletics, we would meet up in the media bar at QE II stadium where, I reckon, the SI expense account paid for more than its share of beers.

Eliud Kiptanui’s claim to being an ‘unknown African’ is as strong as was Ikangaa’s back in 1982. He had run only one marathon before Prague, winning in Kisimu, Kenya, in hot and humid conditions in 2:12.

"’I was expecting a better time than 2:12,’ Kiptanui said immediately after (the race) with, one feels, a degree of understatement. ‘I thought I could do 2:08, 2:09, but 2:05 is incredible, I'm very happy.’"

Kiptanui’s words were reported by British journalist Pat Butcher, who was working for the organisers. Pat has seen his fair share of unknown Africans in his time.

Coincidentally, Ikangaa’s best before Brisbane was reported as 2:12 _ or it may have been 2:21 _ in winning the African championships earlier that year in Cairo. It didn’t matter what it was; he ran better than that in Brisbane. Deek’s 2:09:18 and Ikangaa’s 2:09:30 remain the fastest two marathons run in Australia.

Kiptanui, and Ikangaa before him, illustrate another point about ‘unknown’ Africans. What the phrase means in normal usage is “unknown to us.” If an Australian, an American or a European ran 2:12 in hot and humid Kisimu, or in Cairo’s swelter, we would know all about them.

The point was also brought home to me at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games, the first I reported for The Age. The ‘unknown’ Sammy Tirop beat his far more fancied, and better known, teammate Nixon Kiprotich (not to mention the world record holder Sebastian Coe) to win the 800 metres.

Tirop was 31, ‘unknown’ outside Kenya. I lingered after his press conference to get some further words. He told me he had been running ‘at home’ for some years, but was always fourth or fifth in the national championships. Thus, he didn’t make any teams and had never raced outside Kenya. At that stage, though, Kenya had the Olympic 800 and 1500 metres champions, the world and Olympic champions at 800, and would rank one-two in the 800 that year with William Tanui and Kiprotich.

Known or unknown, then, when your country’s best are the world’s best, finishing “fourth or fifth” in the national title still makes you pretty darned good.

THE OTHER MILESTONE of the week was the passing of Charlie Francis, coach of Ben Johnson, after a five-year battle with cancer. People who know a lot more about sprinting than me will assess Francis as a coach, but just as the word ‘unknown’ used to be often associated with African distance runners, so the word ‘disgraced’ will always be associated with Francis and Johnson.

As came out at the Dubin Inquiry after Johnson’s sensational win in the Seoul Olympic 100 metres, and even more sensational disqualification for a positive drug test, Francis put his squad of top Canadian sprinters on steroids, based on his belief that he was only levelling the playing field in doing so.

No doubt his obituaries will diverge to opposite poles: some will praise his vast sprint knowledge and expertise while implicitly or explicitly agreeing with his views on drug use at the time, others will not get past those views to assess his significance as a coach.

Sadly, whatever the truth of the ‘everybody is/was doing it’ line, it is a situation Charlie Francis created for himself.