Tiny Tegla
bids to end the Kenyan marathon bogey
Steven Downes
21 September 2000 – Sydney - They are world-renowned as the greatest distance runners on the planet. Yet no Kenyan has ever won the ultimate prize at the Olympic Games - the classic marathon.
On Sunday the task of ending the Kenyan marathon bogey falls on the shoulders of tiny Tegla Loroupe.
"I hope I can win the gold medal for my country," Loroupe said. "It has always been my dream."
Only 1.53 metres tall and weighing in at 40kg, 27-year-old Loroupe has dominated world road running ever since she won the 1994 New York City Marathon on her debut at the 42.285km distance that owes its existence more to the staging of modern Olympics than to classical history.
For the second weekend of the 2000 Games, the centre of Sydney will be closed to traffic to allow the Olympians to take to the streets and showcase the city to the world with a road course that include the famous Harbour Bridge, and several draining hills.
But Loroupe, the first Kenyan woman ever to set a world record at an Olympic event, is tough enough to cope with such demands.
When she was a teenager she had to defy her father's wishes to take up a career in the Kenyan post office, while forbidding her to run because it was not suitable for a young woman.
Now based in Germany, her marathon running career has seen her amass vast wealth from victories in big money races in New York (twice), Rotterdam (twice), Berlin (where she set her world best 2hr 20min 43sec last year), Rome and London.
Yet this summer, competing on the European track circuit, Loroupe has shown that she can mix it with the world's best track runners. This will be her third Olympics, but her first Olympic marathon.
Loroupe's rivals are likely to include training partner Joyce Chepchumba, Fatuma Roba, the reigning champion, and a very strong Japanese trio led by Naoko Takahashi, the Asian record-holder.
That 2:21:47 performance was achieved in extraordinary circumstances at the 1998 Asian Games in intense humidity in 32-degree Bangkok, when she beat the rest of the field by 13 minutes.
But likely to attract just as much attention in the early stages of the race will be Aguida Amaral, from East Timor. One of two individual Olympic athletes allowed to compete at the Sydney Games, 28-year-old Amaral is 10cm shorter even than diminutive Loroupe.
Amaral arrived in Sydney without even a pair of running shoes, and has never run a marathon in less than three hours. Enthusiastic Sydneysiders lining the course are expected to cheer her every step of the way.
