Chepchumba:
Kenya's marathon specialist hits the road again
AFP
Five years since competing in her first international marathon, Joyce Chepchumba is heading for Sydney to appear for Kenya in her first Olympic Games.
Chepchumba, 29, was raised in the tea-growing region of Kericho, which has produced some of Kenya's greatest runners such as Wilson Kiprugut Chuma, the first Kenyan ever to win an Olympic medal, a bronze in the 800 metres at Tokyo in 1964.
But unlike most of the athletes who have progressed onto the roads from the track, Chepchumba turned straight to the marathon, where she has made her mark.
She is among the growing number of Kenyans, who, on realising they would not make a headway in the congested world of track running, instead opted for the tedious but lucrative business of the marathon.
Chepchumba was selected in the Kenyan team for the World Cross country Championship in Budapest, Hungary, in 1994 where she finished 18th.
Having joined other marathoners, including compatriot Tegla Loroupe, in Germany for specialised training in the stable of Volker Wagner near Dortmund, Chepchumba made her marathon debut in 1995 in New York, where she was placed fourth behind Loroupe in a time of two hours 33:51.
She went one place better the following year before setting her sights on the London marathon. Her victory in London in 1997 not only earned her a big pay cheque, but her winning time of two hours 26 minutes and 51 seconds made her the Kenya national women's marathon record holder. She was placed third in the same race the following year, but returned to recapture the title in 1999. Her winning purse of 230,000 dollars and bonuses for setting the record time of 2:23.21 turned her into the richest Kenyan woman athlete, before Loroupe broke her two world records in women's marathon.
Chepchumba has also won the Chicago marathon once and finished second in the Tokyo marathon. Like many other athletes, she prefers to let the sport do the talking while she invests her earnings within her home town of Kericho and other parts of the country.
