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An outstanding women in history.

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Tegla LOROUPE | Profile | World Athletics

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Born December 9, 1979

Lived in the Higlands of Kenya

One of 25 children

Worked in the fields as a child

Started school at age 6

School was 10 kilometers away

Ran to school everyday

At 7 competed in 800 and 1500 meter races

Small and skinny no one except her mom took her seriously as a runner

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Tegla Loroupe (9 May 1973 - ) is a Kenyan long-distance track and road runner. She was the first African woman to win the New York City Marathon and has held many world records - from 20km to the marathon. She now devotes much of her time to humanitarian and peace activities, through her Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation.

Early Life Tegla Loroupe

Tegla Loroupe was born in Kutomwony in the West Pokot District of Keyna - situated in the Rift Valley, north of Nairobi. Tegla grew up with 24 siblings; her father had four wives. She spent her childhood working in the fields and looking after younger brothers and sisters. From an early age, Loroupe was given a nickname - Chametia. It means "the one who never gets annoyed." - reflecting her cheerful personality.

At the age of seven, she started to go to school - which involved a barefoot run of ten kilometres every morning. It was at school that her first talent for running was spotted. These early races were normally held over a distance of 800 or 1500 metres. However, with the exception of her mother and older sister, she received little support for her dream to become a runner. At one point, her father banned her from running saying it was not ladylike. Loroupe was expected to concentrate on more utilitarian tasks such as looking after her siblings. Loroupe became dismayed at the obstacles placed in front of her. At one point, she even considered becoming a nun.

"At this point, I was so fed up with men," Ms. Loroupe said, "I thought of becoming a nun." (NYT)

However, Loroupe persisted and continued her running. Ever the peacemaker, she also later made peace with her father. Although she wryly commented "Of course we're friends now," she said. "When you're successful, everyone wants to be your friend."

"He said he was sorry that he was close to destroying my career," Loroupe said. "I told him I was lucky that I had a strong mind, and I didn't listen to him."

Initially, the Kenyan athletics federation were not too impressed with Loroupe - she was considered too frail. However, after winning a prestigious cross country race in 1988, this changed. She was nominated for the junior world championships, and at her first attempt (1989) she finished 28th. This enabled her to focus on running full time.

In 1994, Loroupe ran her first major marathon in New York and won. She was the first African woman to win the New York Marathon. As a consequence, she became an important sporting role model. Kenya, at last, had a female runner to rank alongside its talented male athletes. After this initial success, Tegla Loroupe went on to win many major marathons around the world.

Between 1997 and 1999, she won three consecutive world half marathon Championships. In the World Championships, she won bronze in the 10,000m in both 1995 and 1999.

During the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Loroupe was tipped to be a hot favourite. However, on the eve of the race, she suffered from food poisoning. Despite being weakened by the illness, she managed to complete both the marathon in 13th place and the 10,000m in fifth place. Loroupe late stated that she started the marathon out of a sense of duty to all the people looking up to her as a role model in Kenya.

Between 19 April 1998 - 30 September 2001, Loroupe held the world record for the marathon. She initially set a time of 2:20:47 in the 1998 Rotterdam marathon. In 1999, she broke her own record, setting a time of 2:20:43 in the Berlin marathon. She has also held world records at one hour, 20, 25 and 30 kilometres.

The marathon proved to be Loroupe's most successful distance. She won the marathons of Rotterdam three times between 1997 and 1999, New York in 1994 and 1995, Berlin in 1999, London and Rome in 2000 and Lausanne in 2002.

In 2003, Loroupe found the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation and has been an active advocate for peace. She has been successful in bringing members of warring tribes together. In 2006, she founded the 10km Peace Race, which included 2,000 warriors from six different tribes. Loroupe said the motivation for the race was to use her fame to help bring about greater harmony.

"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", she said, "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."

The race has become an important and significant athletic event. Loroupe's work in promoting peace has been praised by many. Beatrice Karanja, a regional media officer for Oxfam said.

"Tegla is doing brilliant work, absolutely brilliant work," She's given these warriors options. She hasn't just gone in there and told them to stop. She's given them hope for things they can do."

In 2006, she was named a United Nations Ambassador of Sport. She is also a member of the 'Champions for Peace' a group of athletes seeking to use the power of sport to bring about peace. Loroupe has also sought to advance the opportunities of Kenyan women. She is a role model and has helped many women widen their horizons and enter new fields such as running.

'Right now, we have a lot of women running, more than before. For me, I had to fight the federation. Still now, I have to and I don't why. But at least now there are chances for other women. It makes me proud. That is very positive. I'm happy about that." (NYT)

Tegla Loroupe is single and has not married. She splits her time between Detmold, Germany, Kenya and travelling around the world for her various humanitarian initiatives.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. "Biography Tegla Loroupe", Oxford, www.biographyonline.net. Published 1 March 2013. Last updated 6 February 2018.

Women in Sports: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win

Women in Sports: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win at Amazon

Tegla Loroupe Achievements

2002 Lausanne marathon - 1st
2000 Kenyan National Championships, 10,000 meters, 1st
2000 London Marathon, 1st
1999 Half-Marathon World Championships, 1st
1999 Berlin Marathon, 1st
1999 World Championships, 10,000 meters, 3rd
1998 New York City, 3rd
1998 Half-Marathon World Championships, 1st
1998 Rotterdam Marathon, 1st
1998 Goodwill Games, 10,000 meters, 1st
1997 New York City Marathon, 7th
1997 Half-Marathon World Championships, 1st
1997 Rotterdam Marathon, 1st
1996 New York City Marathon, 7th
1996 Boston Marathon, 2nd
1996 Olympic Games, 10,000 meters, 6th
1995 World Championships, 10,000 meters, 3rd
1995 New York City Marathon, 1st
1995 Boston Marathon, 9th
1994 New York City Marathon, 1st
1993 World Championships, 10,000 meters, 4th
Related pages
100 Famous sporting personalities - 100 Famous sporting personalities, including Muhammad Ali, Nadia Comaneci, Pele and Jesse Owens.

Famous Africans - A list of famous Africans. Includes Nelson Mandela, F.W. De Klerk, Haile Selassie, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Anwar Sadat, Kofi Annan and Wangari Maathai.
External links

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Tegla Loroupe (9 May 1973 - ) is a Kenyan long-distance track and road runner. She was the first African woman to win the New York City Marathon and has held many world records - from 20km to the marathon. She now devotes much of her time to humanitarian and peace activities, through her Tegla [...]

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In 1988 she won a race in Kenya barefoot

Kenya athletics finally supported her

In 1994 she was the first african to win the New York marathon

She won 10 marathons around the world

She set a world record in Berlin marathon in 1994

She finished top in 8 Olympic races

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1999 – Tegla Loroupe, Marathon Shoe History

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She used winnings from NYC Marathon to help build a school and athletic program for kids in Kenya

Started a refugee running program and peace organization in 2003
Named ambassador for the International Association of Athletics Federation and Unicef in 2006
Organized the refugee team for the 2016 Olympics and fought for their acceptance prior

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Tegla Chepkite Loroupe (born 9 December 1979) is a Kenyan long-distance track and road runner. She is also a global spokeswoman for peace, women's rights and education. Loroupe holds the world records for 25 and 30 kilometers and previously held the world marathon record. She was the first African woman to hold the marathon World Record, which she held from 19 April 1998 until 30 September 2001. She is the three-time World Half-Marathon champion. Loroupe was also the first woman from Africa to win the New York City Marathon, which she has won twice. She has won marathons in London, Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Berlin and Rome.

In 2016, she was the person organizing the Refugee Team for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

Tegla Loroupe was born in Kapsait village in the Lelan division of West Pokot District. It is situated in the Great Rift Valley, approximately 600 kilometres north of Nairobi. Her father and mother are from the Pokot tribe, a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting parts of northern Kenya, eastern Uganda and southern Ethiopia.

Loroupe was told by her father that she was useless and her career might be babysitting. She grew up with 24 siblings. The Pokots being a polygamous culture, her father had four wives. She spent her childhood working fields, tending cattle and looking after younger brothers and sisters.

At the age of six, Loroupe started school at Kapsait Elementary school; she had to run ten kilometers to and from school every morning. At school, she became aware of her potential as an athlete when she won races held over a distance of 800 or 1500 meters against much older students. She decided to pursue a career as a runner. However, she was not supported by anyone but her mother.

Loroupe in 2007 at a meet in Schortens, Germany.

The Kenyan athletics federation, Athletics Kenya, did not support her at first, thinking Loroupe too small and too thin. However, after she won a prestigious cross country barefoot race in 1988, this changed. She began to train to compete internationally the following year, earning her first pair of running shoes in 1989, which she wore only for particularly rough races. She was nominated for the junior race of the 1989 IAAF World Cross Country Championships finishing 28th. She competed again at the 1990 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, finishing 16th in the junior race.

In 1994 and 1998, Loroupe won the Goodwill Games over 10,000 metres, barefoot. Over the same distance she won bronze medals at the World Athletics Championships in 1995 and 1999.

In 1994, Loroupe ran her first major marathon in New York. Running against the world's strongest competition, she won. As a consequence she was idolised by many young people in Africa: at last, a woman champion to complement the many successful male runners. She won the New York City Marathon again in 1995 and finished 3rd in 1998.

Between 1997 and 1999, she won three world titles a row over the half marathon distance. She won Rotterdam Marathon three times between 1997 and 1999. She won Berlin Marathon in 1999 and finished second in 2001. She finished second at the 1999 Osaka International Ladies Marathon.

Loroupe won the Zevenheuvelenloop 15K race in the Netherland three times (1992, 1993 and 1998). She is a seven-time Egmond Half Marathon winner (1993-1998, 2000). She has won the Lisbon Half Marathon a record six times: 1994-1997, 1999 and 2000. She has won the Tilburg road race, a five times (1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999), also a record number. She won the Paris Half Marathon in 1994 and 1998, City-Pier-City Loop half marathon in the Hague in 1998, and the Parelloop 10K in race in the Netherlands in 1999

During the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, favoured to win both the marathon and the 10,000 meters, she suffered from violent food poisoning the night before the race. Nevertheless, she fought through the marathon race, finishing 13th, then, the next day, ran the 10,000 metres, finishing 5th, running barefoot in both races, a feat she later stated she achieved out of a sense of duty to all the people taking her as a bearer of hope in her home country. Until the end of 2001, she continued to suffer from various health problems.

In 2000, she won London Marathon and Rome City Marathon. She also won Lausanne Marathon in 2002, Cologne Marathon in 2003 and Leipzig Marathon in 2004.

Loroupe competed at the 2005 World Championships marathon race in Helsinki, Finland, but finished only 40th. In February 2006 she won the Hong Kong Half-Marathon. The same year she finished 5th in the Rotterdam Marathon and 2nd in the Venice Marathon. In 2007, she participated again the New York City Marathon, finishing 8th.

Loroupe's biggest successes include world records over 20, 25 and 30 kilometers as well as the past record over the marathon distance. She used to hold the One Hour running World record of 18,340 m set in Borgholzhausen, Germany, but the record was broken by Dire Tune of Ethiopia ten years later, in 2008 (new record 18,517 m).

In 2006, she was named a United Nations Ambassador of Sport by Secretary General Kofi Annan, together with Roger Federer, tennis champion from Switzerland, Elias Figueroa, Latin American soccer legend from Chile, and Katrina Webb paralympics gold medalist from Australia. She is an International Sports Ambassador for the IAAF, the International Association of Athletics Federations, and for UNICEF.

In 2003, Loroupe created an annual series of Peace Marathons sponsored by the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation "Peace Through Sports". Presidents, Prime Ministers, Ambassadors and government officials run with warriors and nomadic groups in her native Kenya, in Uganda and in Sudan, to bring peace to an area plagued by raiding warriors from battling tribes. In 2010 the Kenyan Government lauded her achievements as hundreds of warriors had laid down their weapons.

She has established a school ( Tegla Loroupe Peace Academy) and orphanage for children from the region in Kapenguria, a high-mountain town in north-west Kenya.

The 2006 Peace Marathon was held on 18 November 2006, in Kapenguria, Kenya. Two thousand warriors from six tribes competed. The next Peace Marathon was 15 November 2008 in Kapenguria, Kenya. National ambassadors to Kenya participated, together with the Prime Minister, and several Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ugandan Ministers. The Peace Marathon has been held each year since then, with the exception of the past two Covid years. Winners of the races often begin professional training in long-distance running, or join the training team of ex-warriors.

In February 2007, she was named the Oxfam Ambassador of Sport and Peace to Darfur. In December 2006, she travelled with George Clooney, Joey Cheek, and Don Cheadle to Beijing, Cairo, and New York on a diplomatic mission to bring an end to violence in Darfur. She won the "Community Hero" category at the 2007 Kenyan Sports Personality of the Year awards.

In November 2009, Tegla represented the Shoe4Africa team. running the New York Marathon alongside founder Toby Tanser and actress Sarah Jones finishing in 3:54:02.

Loroupe is a member of the 'Champions for Peace' club, a group of 54 famous elite athletes committed to serving peace in the world through sport, created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organisation.

As reported by Olympic news outlet Around the Rings, the IOC recognised six women, five from each continent and one to represent the world, for their achievements and their work to promote women's sport. Loroupe was awarded the world trophy.

In 2015 Loroupe became an Ambassador for the Homeless World Cup.

In 2016, she was the Chef de Mission organizing the Refugee Team for the 2016 Summer Olympics. At those games Loroupe was inducted into the Olympians for life project for her work in promoting peace. In October 2016 Loroupe was awarded United Nations Person of the Year.

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Tegla Chepkite Loroupe (born 9 December 1979) is a Kenyan long-distance track and road runner. She is also a global spokeswoman for peace, women's rights and education. Loroupe holds the world records for 25 and 30 kilometers and previously held the world marathon record.

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She proves people can succeed with determination

She made great strides in the running world for Africans, women, children, and refugees

She uses her fame to promote justice and peace

Her foundation thrives internationally today