Tegla Loroupe - bundle of energy and driving force for peace

“If we had one hundred Tegla Loroupes, then we would have everlasting peace!” - Honourable Dr Moody A. A. Awori, The Vice President of Kenya.

Kapenguria, Kenya - Now in its third year, the annual Tegla Loroupe Peace Race has grown from a simple desire to bring peace and stability to a major force for conflict resolution in Kenya and the neighbouring countries.

Click here for Saturday’s race report by David Macharia

The idea for the Peace Race originated with Tegla Loroupe, the diminutive runner from West Pokot in the North Rift Valley who ran her way to prominence on the world scene with victories in all of the big city marathons and three successive World Half Marathon victories. On the way Loroupe also set two World bests over the distance and a string of other records on the road and track.

But now, though she continues to run regularly on the international circuit, this 39 kilogramme bundle of energy has thrown all of her force and determination into the struggle to bring peace to her region, an area that has in the past been subject to bitter tribal rivalries and fighting over land disputes and cattle thieving.

To achieve her aim, Loroupe established the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation and this has been the vehicle that has carried forward her plans to hold the annual Peace Race; first here in her home town of Kapenguria and, since the inaugural race in 2003, in two other locations in Kenya and one in Uganda.

Along the lines of the Women’s Race started in Casablanca by another great African athlete, Morocco’s Nawal El Moutawakel, Loroupe launched her initiative. But the mountain pasture lands of the North Rift are not the cosmopolitan environment of Casablanca. Here infrastructures are bare, where they are not inexistent entirely.

Kapenguria is a small town, a collection of rudimentary shacks and the occasional brick built house, with a population that is almost entirely dependent on agriculture and more especially on cattle raising and vegetable growing, with pasture land interspersed with maize fields and vegetable plots. Signs of poverty are everywhere, with potholed roads, when they are not simple dirt tracks and a lack of basic medical facilities.

The border with Uganda is just a few kilometres away and there were frequent disturbances with gangs from the neighbouring country and rival tribes stealing the cattle of the Pokots.

Much of the little wealth that exists here has been created by human feet: the feet of athletes who have used their natural athletic abilities to make their mark in the stadiums and on the roads of the world, running to build a better future for themselves and their families.

Many of these athletes have used their success to buy fancy cars and build themselves palatial houses, but a few – and Tegla Loroupe is one of the best examples – have used the money that they have earned through years of hard training and tough competition that has taken them far away from their families and friends, to give back to the communities that brought them up and gave them the foundations for their success.

For Loroupe, the matter is simple: “I grew up in a pastoral environment where life was really hard because of the local conflicts between the tribes and people stealing cattle. All of this on top of conditions that were hard to start with.

“I was lucky. I had talent and was able to make a success out of running and I felt that I wanted to give things back to the community I grew up in.”

Matters were galvanised when Tegla’s elder sister died leaving three children. Tegla was the one with the means, so she took over, raising the children and sending them to school to ensure that they had a good education and hopes of a better future.

“”You know,” she recounts, “life was very hard when I was young. When there was a goat missing in the evening, my father used to send us out looking for it in the forest and sometimes we stayed out all night if we couldn’t find it, as the animal would otherwise probably have been eaten by the hyenas in the forest. It was very dangerous.”

But the dangers were not just natural. The surrounding population counts a number of tribes who were often at odds with one another and frequent incursions and killings were the result. Loroupe felt that she could do something about this after experiencing the way that athletes from many countries managed to compete together loyally and without aggression.

The idea of the Peace Race was born.

Today’s Peace Race, its third running, was an affair that attracted hundreds of local people, with the youngest runner in the 2 kilometres race for children just five years old and the oldest participant in the adults 2 kilometre run probably in his seventies. Nearly a thousand people took part in the arduous 10 kilometre race, run over a tough and hilly course in and around Kapenguria.

And above and beyond the participation of locals and athletes from the surrounding areas and overseas, the race has attracted widespread publicity and support; even members of the diplomatic corps participate. The Norwegian ambassador, for example, has run in every edition of the Peace Race and this year was also accompanied by staff members from the Norwegian embassy and their children.

With Athletics Kenya represented by its Chairman, IAAF Council member Isaiah Kiplagat and ambassadors and Consuls from Uganda, Saudi Arabia and Somalia attending also, there was no shortage of local and foreign dignitaries. And the organisation was also supported by Amnesty International, Oxfam, the International Athletics Foundation and Medecins sans Frontières.

The main race over ten kilometres attracted the locals in their hundreds and also a handful of elite runners from far a field: Russia, Holland, Somalia, and a number of neighbouring African countries, to name but a few, with all of the foreign runners here to support the initiative of Tegla, an athlete they have competed against on the international road running circuit over the years, a person they have learned to love for her simplicity and generosity.

This race is about running, certainly, but not about running for money, though there were cash prizes for the winners. It is not a race for the elite, though many of Kenya’s elite athletes have participated since the inaugural edition and those that do not run lend a hand, bringing their own cars to drive the foreign visitors from Nairobi for anything up to eight hours over the often barely passable roads up here to the Rift and helping look after them once they are here.

This race is about the quest for peace and the influence that is has exercised in such a short time was expressed by the local Member of Parliament, when he said: “For years now, we have been afraid of our neighbours. Members of one tribe have looked at the members of another tribe and they have not spoken, for they have been afraid. Now they are not afraid. They are here and they are running alongside one another.

“Warriors from the different tribes are here today together and they are talking and perhaps, indeed I am sure, they will soon be marrying and the conflicts will be a thing of the past.

“When this happens, then we will be able to attract visitors and that will bring more wealth and prosperity to our peoples.”

The results of the Peace Race are tangible, with conflicts in the area almost totally over, to the point where the local MP called for the army to leave the area: “Thanks to Tegla Loroupe, our region is now more peaceful and we no longer have the need for the army,” he says. And on the evening following the race, warriors from eight tribes who would previously never have approached one another with anything but fighting in mind staged representations of their tribal dances together in a local community hall and were warmly applauded by local residents. After which they all queued quietly in line to receive a plate of food and eat together.

For Tegla, the answer to many problems lies in two areas: sport and education. “When you have a good education and learn things well at school, then you will make your lives better,” she said addressing a group of school children the day before the race.

“We have many problems in our society, but all of these: female circumcision, fighting, the Aids virus, can be wiped out through education and sport, which brings the consciousness of people that health is important and that competition is best done in a sporting context.”

Putting her money where her mouth is, Loroupe has started, through the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation, the construction of the Tegla Loroupe Peace Academy. The concept is to create a school with a sports field that will serve all of the neighbouring areas, providing education, medical care and sports facilities to the underprivileged children from all around.

Construction is underway and the foundation stone was laid by Kenyan Vice President, the Honourable Dr Moody A. A. Awori this morning. Dr Awori took time out to fly up to Kapenguria, despite the fact that it meant him leaving meetings at the highest level in Nairobi, with a crucial referendum vote scheduled for Monday.

His words to the crowd at the race venue sum up the impact that Tegla has had in her homeland. To roars from the crowd, he exclaimed: “If we had one hundred Tegla Loroupes, then we would have everlasting peace!”

What more fitting tribute to this young woman, who has risen far above her humble beginnings, to achieve greatness on the world Athletics stage and to make peace and harmony her monument?

Sean Wallace-Jones for the IAAF