Won two gold medals at 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres in the Athens Paralympic Games, breaking the world records in both events. In 2004 he also won the Hong Kong Marathon, was first in the visually impaired category in the Boston Marathon and was fourth overall in the Mumbai Marathon.
Even before he was a teenager, Henry was being groomed to join an elite corps of Kenyan athletes in the country that has probably produced more world-class middle-distance runners over the last 20 years than any other. Then in 1995, aged 21, he had a stroke which resulted in him becoming blind. Four years later a doctor in the hospital which he attended suggested he could still run with a guide and a tether. Once he became familiar with using a guide, he quickly established himself as a world class non-sighted runner, earning a place in the national squad for the 5,000 metres at the Sydney Paralympics in 2000. He not only won the gold medal, but set a Paralympic record.
Wanyoike is now an advocate for persons with a disability in Africa, he serves as an Ambassador for the Light the World programme and is also a founding member and co-ordinator for the Goodwill Project, which feeds and educates more than 60 children who are orphaned in Kenya.
