Aileen Kimutai (AFP)
10 August 2000 – Nairobi - Combining track and the marathon at the Olympic Games would be a tall order for any athlete, but for Kenya's marathon star, Tegla Loroupe, it's part of her training routine.
Small in stature, she weighs only 45 kilograms (99 pounds), Loroupe more than makes up for it through her abundance of courage and character.
Since bursting into the international limelight in 1994, winning the New York marathon at her first attempt, Loroupe has undergone a punishing schedule in her pursuit of athletic excellence.
She has won the Rotterdam marathon title and the IAAF World half-marathon races three times each and she is the current London marathon champion.
At Sydney, she not only aims to become the first Kenyan woman ever to win an Olympic gold medal, but she will tackle both the marathon and the 10,000 metres.
"I know I can do it. I have the power and the will and, with the help of my fellow Kenyan runners, I can make it in Sydney", Loroupe told AFP here after being selected to run both events at the Summer Games.
One of her team-mates in the marathon will be Joyce Chepchumba, Loroupe's close friend and training partner in Germany.
"We have given Tegla our blessings and that's why we have selected her to run in both events," Kenya Amateur Athletics Association (KAAA) secretary David Okeyo said.
One does not have to look far to illustrate Loroupe's stamina and determination.
In Berlin last year she set a new world best performance of two hours 20 minutes and 43 seconds in the women's marathon and six days later she claimed her third IAAF half-marathon victory in Italy.
Yet seven years ago, Loroupe, one of six children of a peasant farmer from Kapsait in Kenya's West Pokot district, was virtually unknown.
She grew up in the village of Murgogoi where she was born on May 9, 1973 and, like other children, she used to run to school everyday to escape being punished by the teachers for being late.
Her people, the Pokot, are known pastoralists with little running tradition, unlike their Kalenjin cousins, the Nandis, Kipsigis, Keiyos and Tugens.
It was only after leaving school that, having recognised her potential, the giant Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation, which was well known for its thriving sports prowess, employed Tegla as a clerical officer.
Her first international competition came in 1990 when she finished 16th in the World junior cross-country championships in Aix-Les-Bains, France.
Two years later, she was among the eight women athletes selected to represent Kenya in the Barcelona Olympic Games. Her inexperience saw her take a tumble on the track after a collision with the other athletes, but she managed to collect herself and finish 19th.
However, her major breakthrough came in 1994, two years after moving her training base to Germany, when she won her first marathon in New York, a feat she was to repeat the following year.
It was the beginning of her domination on the roads that reached a climax when she broke Ingrid Kristiansen's 13-year-old world best mark at the Rotterdam marathon in 1997.
Despite her international status and huge monetary gains, Loroupe is still very much a village girl when she returns home from her training in Germany.
She does all the domestic chores such as fetching water, collecting firewood and milking the cows.
She also assists in sponsoring the Kabrech training camp for young athletes who want to follow her footsteps. One of them is her younger brother.
