It is not unusual to see Alfred Chelanga, Gilbert Kigen and Vincent Kiprop together, considering that they live, workout, practice, and race together. But also, fans are able to see them cross the finish line together.

During their first cross country season together at the Capstone, the trio finished 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in three of the six cross country meets they competed in, including at the SEC championship meet. In the Crimson Classic meet, they came in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place. Coach Dan Waters hopes for the same this season as well.

“I think every coach in the country would want to have these three guys on the same team at the same time. Hopefully we can do some pretty special things at every contest we compete at,” Waters said.

The three runners all hail from Kenya, and also have similar paths of arriving at the University of Alabama. Chelanga and Kiprop were Division II runners from Shorter University and Missouri Southern State, respectively, and Kigen ran at junior college Central Arizona College. After two years of competing at their colleges, they transferred to Alabama.

“When I was recruiting them, they were beating everyone in the country,” Waters said.” It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that they were the best in the country.”

Luckily for Waters, he did not have to do much to get Chelanga, Kigen and Kiprop to come race for the Crimson Tide. Antibahs Kosegi, a fellow Kenyan runner who graduated in 2017, helped Waters recruit Chelanga and then the dominos fell with Vincent and Gilbert committing shortly thereafter.

“I had to do less work recruiting those top three guys than any other combination of runners on my team,” Waters said.

In the case of Kigen, he came to the University of Alabama as the most storied runner in JUCO history by winning 9 individual JUCO national championships.

“Once I heard Alfred and Vincent were coming, I decided to come here. I knew we were going to have a very good team and I was going to have great teammates to train with,” Kigen said.

The accolades for the trio have continued to their time at Alabama. Just on the cross country trails, all three runners were selected as first team SEC, All-South region and All-Americans, with Kiprop being the SEC Cross Country Men’s Runner of the Year. Their laundry list of honors also include various indoor and outdoor track awards.

As the new season begins, those achievements are now in the past for the runners.“I ran well last season, but this is a new season. I’m looking to run the best I can and become the best of the best,” Kiprop said.

On Friday, national-ranked No. 6 Alabama will participate in the Nuttycombe Invitational in Madison, Wisconsin and will be the season debut for Chelanga, Kigen, and Kiprop. The meet is considered one of the best cross country meets of the season with seven of the top-10 teams in the country competing.

“It is a very stacked meet. Many of the teams are probably looking at the meet saying, ‘Wow. That is a gauntlet. That’s the national cross country championship meet 6 weeks it’s supposed to be ran,’” Waters said.

Even though the team will be hoping for a good result, they believe it will be a challenging test for them.

“It’s going to be a good meet for myself and the team to know where we are compared to team across the country and what we need to improve on,” Kigen said.