Eldoret in Kenya: A town where they ‘run away from poverty’

The rain has ended, the low clouds are clearing and the wet rust-coloured earth of the track shines in the sharp, angled sun. Justin Kipchumba is walking, his backs and shoulders steaming as the sweat evaporates.

His training for the morning is over. The 27-year-old has covered 30km through the fields and pastures outside the western Kenyan town of Eldoret in an hour and 45 minutes, and is heading to his rented room for tea and a plate of maize flour mash with vegetables. It is 8am.

“It is like this every day. I sleep, I run, I eat. One day I will win big races,” said Kipchumba, who comes from a small village nearby and is yet to compete overseas.

Few of the million-plus tourists who visit Kenya every year come close to Eldoret, which lies at an altitude of around 7,000ft (2,100 metres) on a plateau above the Rift Valley, a five-hour drive west of the capital, Nairobi.

Few have even heard of the town.

Yet for anyone who knows anything about athletics, Eldoret is the heart of the extraordinary phenomenon that is Kenyan running. For hundreds of thousands of people in and around the town, a poor region that has suffered recurrent ethnic violence, the money earned by local athletes pays for school fees, clinics or cash support for local farmers.

The Kenyans' dominance in distance running remains almost unchallenged. All of the 10 fastest marathons ever run by men on record-eligible courses were run by Kenyans. Their athletes won 11 Olympic medals in London in 2012, topped the 2015 World Championship in Beijing, and look set for similar achievements at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Eliud Kipchoge, who won the London Marathon for the second consecutive year in April with the second-fastest time in history on a record-eligible course, is hoping to win in Brazil.

“The Olympics is a lifetime achievement. When you are an Olympian you are a champion forever,” said the 31-year-old, who leads the Kenyan men’s team.

But a shadow lies over Kenyan athletics; allegations of widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs and corruption at the highest levels. A law reforming oversight of doping was passed in a last-minute bid to avert a ban, but Kenyan competitors face extra individual tests if they wish to participate in the Games.

"We are going to Rio not to just win medals, but to clear the reputation of Kenyan athletes. That is our primary task," said Wesley Korir, one of the five Kenyan men travelling to Brazil to compete in the marathon.

National pride

There is more at stake than national pride or the careers of top sportsmen.

Surrounding every athlete are concentric rings of dependants. For the lower ranked runners – such as Kipchumba, on his long early morning run with his cheap Chinese shoes and rented room – these are ageing parents, children, a spouse and siblings. Athletes competing at national level or in minor races overseas have more responsibilities.

Ruth Bosibori, a middle-distance runner who competed in the 2008 Olympics, pays thousands of dollars annually in school fees for her three children and a host of cousins. “When I think of all the children that motivates me to work hard to take care of them,” she said.

For the top athletes such as Korir, who has won a string of top races in the US, the dependants number in the hundreds.

Korir was elected to the Kenyan parliament in 2012 and funds a foundation which pays school fees for 300 children, supports 2,000 farmers and is proving jobs to 100 tailors. “If I win a race, those kids go to school next year. If I don’t, they don’t. It’s a very big motivation. When you reach the pain, you have to have a reason. People always ask: ‘Why do we run so fast?’ There’s a simple answer. We are running away from poverty,” Korir said.

For men like Korir, that poverty is a distant memory. The rewards for elite runners are extraordinary. Total prize money on offer at the Boston or London marathons this year exceeded a million dollars.

Appearance fees negotiated by top athletes and revenues from sponsorship deals or brand endorsements can easily earn elite runners a million dollars annually. The impact of such massive infusions of cash on what remains a poor rural community is enormous. In and around Eldoret, athletes have built office blocks, hospitals, clinics, apartment complexes, shopping centres and petrol stations. Many are named after the races which funded their construction. Property prices have skyrocketed.

“Our people participate all over the world, and then invest everything back home. It has transformed our town,” said David Kimosop, a local businessman.

Career choice

In schools there is only one career choice. “Very, very few want to be engineers or doctors or lawyers. They all want to run. They see the successful athletes with their big cars and so on, so it’s a role model,” said

James Legat

, 40, a headteacher and coach.

But the incentives and the pressure lead some into wrongdoing. A World Anti-Doping Agency study from 2014 found that almost one in four sportspeople knew another who used illegal drugs.

More than 40 Kenyan athletes have tested positive for various banned substances in recent years and 18 are currently serving bans totalling 55 years. Some are high-profile – such as marathon runner Rita Jeptoo – but many others are not.

“It is not the top athletes or the bottom ones. It is those in the middle. They are seeking a shortcut to financial security and success,” said Nelson Kitwarotith, a 35-year-old marathon runner, from Eldoret.

The elite athletes are only a tiny minority among the thousands running every morning in the fields outside the town. Many make a tough living running in events in Asia or Europe where there is no appearance fee and the prize money sometimes only just about covers travel costs.

Kitwarotith, the son of subsistence farmers, is typical. He ran, barefoot, the 18km to and from school with his school bag on his back. The rangy former policeman and soccer player only started seriously training in his mid-20s. Since then, he has run three or four races a year in China, Malaysia, South Korea and India, earning up to $10,000 for a win, and nothing if he does not run fast enough.

No shoes

“It’s tough, but what I have now I have thanks to running. Otherwise it’s miserable. Your kids have no shoes, no bread even,” he said.

But the sudden riches can cause problems too. Kitwarotith has seen young men win large sums of money; they change. “They are not the same people. They start drinking, partying. They go crazy. They can’t handle it,” he said.

Some observers say it is unlikely Eldoret can sustain its astonishing tradition of running. Fewer children run long distances to school. Though, according to official statistics, unemployment in Kenya is at 40 per cent, there are more opportunities than before for school leavers. The town is home to a large university and dozens of other vocational training centres.

But Kipchoge, the Olympic team leader, has no doubt the dominance of Eldoret, and Kenya, will continue for decades to come. “There are thousands of athletes in Kenya. A lot are teenagers. We have the people to take over,” he said.

Guardian Service