Lucas Sang

Formerly an 800 m runner, Sang moved down to 400 m and was picked to compete in the 1987 All-Africa Games in Nairobi where he was a member of the silver medal winning 4×400 m relay squad. In the 1988 Olympic Games he was an individual 400 m quarter-finalist and ran the second leg for the Kenyan team as they placed eight in the relay final. Sang was a member of the victorious Kenyan 4×400 m squad in the 1989 African Athletics Championships but afterwards was more often seen as a pacemaker in international 800 m races.

After his retirement he used his athletics earnings to buy a large farm back home in Kenya and also had a business partnership with former world 10,000 m champion Moses Tanui. He remained active in Kenyan track and field, serving as chairman of the Usian Gishu district athletics commission and as treasurer of the National Association of Kenyan Olympiads.

He died in the violent aftermath to the 2007 Kenyan presidential elections. On 31 December 2007, the day 50 people were burnt to death in a church in Eldoret, Lucas Sang was walking home when he was accosted by youths and stoned to death in retribution for the church massacre, in what may have been tribal violence, most likely a case of mistaken tribal identity.

Personal Best: 400 – 45.3 (1988).