Kenya’s two-time Olympic 800m champion David Rudisha is reportedly unharmed after a plane he was travelling in crash-landed on Saturday evening.
The plane carrying the 33-year-old, who won gold at both London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016, and five others came down near a park in Kajiado county in Kenya’s south-east.
Pictures from the scene suggest the plane flipped over after one of its wings hit a tree, with Rudisha describing the event as a “scary episode”.
“All was well close to seven or eight minutes into the flight when the engine of the plane suddenly went quiet,” he told the Daily Nation newspaper.
“He saw some clear space where he tried to land the plane but one of its wings hit a tree as the plane started to spin before landing on the rocky field,
“The pilot did an incredible job to keep the plane afloat and stable for long.”
Rudisha, whose winning time in London of one minute 40.91 seconds still stands as the men’s 800m world record, is said to be unhurt.
However, one of the other occupants, Stephen Ole Marai, was reportedly being treated in a hospital for rib injuries while others had minor injuries and were taken to hospital but later discharged.
Rudisha had been on his way back from attending the annual Maasai Olympics event at Kimana Wildlife Sanctuary in Kajiado county.
Now retired from top-level athletics, he has suggested that he is considering going into coaching.
He survived a car accident on the Nairobi-Kisumu highway in August 2019 when a tyre burst and his SUV collided head-on with a bus. (BBC)