Kenya’s running stars attract suspicion and awe – our research gives a more human picture

In April 2026, Kenyan runner Sabastian Sawe became the first person to officially run the marathon in under two hours. This milestone was anxiously awaited by the running world.

The discussions that followed touched on several topics. These ranged from the “secrets” of Kenyan running successes, to the new-fangled “super shoes” Sawe and others wore during the race. From curiosity about his running statistics leading to a spoof app account to suspicions of doping that haunt many Kenyan runners.

In Kenya, Sawe's family and neighbours noted the pride and joy they felt. Politicians hailed the performance as a symbol of national pride.

For anyone who pays attention to Kenyan distance running, conversations like these are not uncommon. Elite Kenyan athletes regularly record world-beating results. They're followed by outpourings of pride and an interest in the secrets that underpin such performances.

As scholars who study the history of Kenyan running, we believe such debates fail to take into account many of the valuable experiences that define the lives of Kenyan runners.

They seldom include the ways Kenyan athletes use the sport to pursue social mobility, connect with local communities, and navigate unequal, racialised treatment in the sport.

Exploring these themes helps us better understand how Kenyan athletes experience the full range of what it means to be human. They push us to think critically about both the possibilities and limits of sport as a way to expand human potential and connection.

Social mobility and education

One of the things that gets lost in the focus on elite performance is how, despite serious challenges, Kenyan athletes have used their abilities to create global lives, especially in the pursuit of social mobility.

For example, when Kenyan runners began earning intercollegiate scholarships during the 1970s, they were intent on pursuing higher education for the purposes of employment. They were less interested in achieving elite results or promoting the nation.

Our research bears this out. Tecla Chemabwai, who competed for Kenya at two Olympics during the late 1960s and early 1970s, used her talents to become the first female Kenyan athlete to earn an intercollegiate scholarship. Upon returning to Kenya in 1978, she transformed her degree in physical education into a 30-year teaching and coaching career. Today she runs a school, the Chemabwai-Sang Education Centre, that is partially funded by connections she made in the US.

A second pattern that's often overlooked is the role of local institutions, especially schools. While most Kenyan athletes recall taking part in a range of games before starting school, runners regularly say school is where they were introduced to organised, competitive running.

Indeed, sports have been central to schooling experiences in Kenya since the colonial era. Following independence in 1963, they've been Kenya's most prominent centres of athletic success. A good example is St. Patrick's High School in the town of Iten, which has excelled in a range of sports and become one of Kenya's most important athletics institutions.

The lack of attention paid to these stories is a missed opportunity. They demonstrate the ways Kenyan athletes have looked to both transnational networks and local institutions to build their lives and their sport.

Performance and technology

Another dominant narrative that needs rethinking is the focus on chemical substances and on performance technologies.

Because of the increase in the number of Kenyan athletes found guilty of violating anti-doping protocols, runners like Sawe have to contend with constant suspicion of chemical doping. To counter this, Sawe, his management, and his sponsor spent US$50,000 on voluntary testing ahead of his record-breaking performance.

While athletes performing at elite levels are viewed with both suspicion and admiration, Black and African sporting bodies have been disproportionately treated with suspicion for a long time. This ranges from discriminatory gender verification to accusations of chemical doping, age doping (age fraud), and mechanical doping because of running in super shoes, despite such shoes being worn by runners from other regions.

A history of injustice

These suspicions mirror historical patterns. As in other sports, east African running success has long been explained through racialised notions of innate Black athletic ability, rather than mental skill or social dynamics.

In other instances, begrudging the overwhelming success of Kenyan runners, race directors in the 1990s tried to outright limit Kenyans from competing. More recently, the International Association of Athletics Federations decided to remove races longer than 3,000 metres from the professional athletics circuit. This had an unfairly negative impact on professional east African runners who have dominated those distances.

Kenyan runners continue to compete in an unequal sporting world where their belonging is constantly challenged. It's in an effort to claim belonging that athletes like Sawe subject their bodies to intensive out-of-competition blood and urine testing. We should not romanticise such efforts as upholding sports ethics. Rather, those of us who write and talk about Kenyan running must critically analyse how such narratives obscure discussions about fairness and belonging.

In fact, given that doping occurs across a range of sports and countries, African sport scholars have cautioned against uncritically embracing the branding of east Africa as a unique hot spot for doping. Such perceptions give a veneer of legitimacy to the racism underpinning detractors of Kenyan running success.

Toward a fuller conversation

Most sports reporting ignores the rich communities Kenyan athletes build and live in, both past and present. Rethinking these conversations helps us understand that African sporting experiences are not just defined by elite achievement, national identity, and an obsession with performance.

Kenyan athletes care about the mechanics of running and they care about the implications their performances hold for their nation and the wider sports world. But their lives are also significantly influenced by the complex social networks and communities to which they belong. They lead lives that touch the full range of human experience.

A deeper exploration of these ideas will generate a discussion of Kenyan running that engages more fully, in both critical and celebratory ways, with the inspiring performances that Kenyan athletes like Sawe continue to produce.

Dawson McCall has received funding from the US Department of State through a Fulbright-Hays DDRA Grant.

Chepchirchir Tirop has received funding from the International Olympic Committee through an Olympic Studies Center PhD Students and Early Career Academics Research Grant.

By Dawson McCall, Assistant Professor, Loyola University New Orleans And

Chepchirchir Tirop, Assistant Professor of History, Boston University

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