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Coach Gervais Hakizimana - a retired Rwandese runner who had spent months targeting the world record with his athlete - convinced Kiptum not to pull out, telling him to "recover for a few days and get back in training".

Bowling Green has welcomed waves of refugees over four decades, beginning with the Cambodians in the 1980s and then Bosnians in the 1990s, plus Iraqis, Burmese, Rwandese and Congolese and others, who have helped make the city of 72,000 a diverse and economically thriving place.

“I’m Rwandese, it doesn’t matter if you are Hutu or Tutsi as long as you are Rwandese,” Mutesi said.

The Rwandese community here is not large.

“When we tried to get money from the fund for survivors, we were told that our families must have been killed by accident because the genocide only targeted the Tutsi,” said Shaban Munyarukundo, a member of a Twa advocacy group called the Rwandese Community of Potters.