Running News Daily

Ambassador Tegla Chepkite Loroupe has embarked on an extraordinary 840-kilometre run from Kakuma Refugee Camp in Turkana County to Uhuru Park in Nairobi, turning a seven-day endurance challenge into a powerful campaign for peace, education, inclusion and greater awareness of the experiences and aspirations of refugees.

Loroupe is undertaking the journey alongside 28 refugees, with the initiative designed to shine a light on the challenges facing refugee communities in Kakuma and Dadaab while promoting stronger relationships between refugees and their host communities.

For Loroupe, the run represents far more than a test of endurance. It is an extension of a mission she has pursued for years—using sport as a platform to promote peace, opportunity, education and inclusion for people whose lives have been affected by displacement.

Reflecting on the early days of advocating for refugee inclusion in sport and development, Loroupe said it was deeply meaningful to see Yiech Pur Biel continue that mission. Biel, who grew up in Kakuma Refugee Camp and went on to represent the Refugee Olympic Team, will lead the team at the Youth Olympic Games in Senegal this year.

“Reflecting on the early days of advocating for refugee inclusion in sports and development, it means so much to see Yiech Pur Biel carry that mission forward — this year, he’ll lead the Refugee Olympic Team at the Youth Olympic Games in Senegal. I’m taking on an 840km journey over seven days, running from Kakuma Refugee Camp to Uhuru Park in Nairobi alongside 28 refugees. Every kilometre of this run is a reminder: displacement doesn’t have to mean the end of a dream. Everyone deserves the chance to pursue theirs,” Amb. Tegla Loroupe said.

The message captures the heart of the initiative. By running alongside refugees rather than simply speaking about their experiences, Loroupe is seeking to bring their stories, ambitions and hopes closer to the national conversation.

Her journey also reflects the remarkable transformation of her own life from elite athlete to global advocate. Born on 9 May 1973, Loroupe established herself as one of Kenya’s most accomplished long-distance runners before devoting much of her influence to peacebuilding, education, women's rights and humanitarian causes.

During her illustrious career, she held world records over 25 and 30 kilometres and became the first African woman to hold the women's marathon world record. She also became a three-time world half-marathon champion and made history as the first African woman to win the New York City Marathon, claiming the prestigious race twice.

Her victories extended to several of the world's major marathons, including London, Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Berlin and Rome, cementing her reputation as one of the outstanding distance runners of her generation.

Yet Loroupe's influence today extends well beyond her achievements on the road. Through the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation and other initiatives, she has continued to champion peaceful coexistence and opportunities for communities affected by conflict and displacement.

The 840-kilometre journey now gives that mission a physical form. From Kakuma to Nairobi, every kilometre is intended to carry a message of hope while drawing attention to the potential of refugees when they are given access to education, sport, opportunity and a supportive community.

The participation of 28 refugees makes the journey even more significant. Their presence transforms the run from a symbolic campaign into a collective expression of resilience, allowing those directly affected by displacement to become part of the story being told.

As Loroupe and her fellow runners make their way towards Uhuru Park over seven days, the distance will inevitably test their physical strength. But the greater purpose lies beyond the finish line: reminding Kenya and the wider world that being displaced does not mean being without dreams.

For Loroupe, every stride is therefore a statement of possibility—a call for peace, inclusion and education, and a powerful reminder that with the right opportunities, refugees can move beyond survival and pursue the futures they envision.

Two months ago, Dominic Lobalu thought he would not be able to compete at Paris 2024, but now he has the chance to make history.

The 25-year-old was ruled out of the Tokyo 2020 Games after claiming asylum in Switzerland, making him ineligible to compete for refugee teams.

After being given clearance by World Athletics to represent his adopted nation in May - despite not holding Swiss citizenship - Lobalu won two medals at the the European Championships the following month.

His gold in the 10,000m and bronze in the 5,000m persuaded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to invite Lobalu to join its Refugee Olympic Team, and the South Sudanese-born runner will compete over the shorter distance in the French capital. “This is what I was dreaming for,” Lobalu told BBC Sport Africa.

“When I started my training, the goal was to go to the Olympics one day. And now I have it I'm so happy.”

Boxer Cindy Ngamba has already assured the Refugee Olympic Team of its first ever medal, but Lobalu could upgrade her guaranteed bronze.

The first round of the 5,000m begins on Wednesday, but it has been a long journey for Lobalu to reach the start line. It is one that began in Sudan and has taken detours via Kenya and Switzerland. In 1998, Lobalu was born into a country in the middle of a long-running civil war.

He grew up in Chukudum, a small village in south-east Sudan which would become part of South Sudan when it gained independence in 2011.

The conflict, which ended in 2005, is estimated to have killed two million people. But two years after the war Lobalu's home village was raided by soldiers. The family fled but he was separated from his parents.

He wound up in an orphanage and then, at the age of nine, made it across the border to Kenya with the help of an Italian NGO.

The Kakuma Refugee Camp, a sprawling settlement in north-west Kenya run by the UNHCR, became his new home.

Now living in Switzerland, Lobalu is reluctant to talk in depth about his past before a competition, preferring to focus on the future.

However, he admits his experiences at the camp motivate him on the track.

What does home mean to you? Home can be a place, a sense of belonging or a feeling of happiness. For refugees at the Kakuma camp and Kalobeyei, home could easily be a Kids’ Athletics gathering.

On the early morning of 25 April, the Kalobeyei Sports Complex within the refugee settlement came alive, buzzing with athletics activities. A total of 125 young people from five schools took part in the Kids’ Athletics event, held as part of a four-day Kids’ Athletics workshop.

In collaboration with World Athletics, the workshop was held in Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei integrated settlements in north-western Kenya as part of the larger Athletics and Education programme implemented by AHEEN (African Higher Education in Emergencies Network). AHEEN, a network of African institutions, aims to keep young people that are in refugee communities in school and education, informed by principles of physical, social, cognitive and emotional wellbeing and sports science. On board for the workshop were UNHCR and Youth Education and Sports (YES), a refugee-led organisation that supports the development of sport and education for young people in the refugee context. Based in Kakuma, YES is a member of the AHEEN network.

Following the workshop, 23 teachers from four refugee schools and one from the host community applied their learning and delivered a fun event for the children. They were assisted by the U20 Athlete Refugee Team, a team supported by World Athletics as part of the AHEEN Athletics & Education programme.

“As the most universally accessible sport, it is vital that we reach down to the grassroots level to children across the globe to get them inspired about athletics. This is especially true in reaching youth who are displaced or in difficult situations outside of their control. Our Kids’ Athletics programme is the perfect vehicle to enable this by providing the flexibility we need to work with communities like the Kakuma Refugee Camp,” said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.

“Taking Kids’ Athletics to these settings means it becomes much more than a sport programme. With a holistic approach, it combines social, emotional and mental elements to promote a sense of wellbeing, and this is at the heart of our project in the Kakuma Refugee Camp. This is what Kids’ Athletics stands for.

“There can be no doubt as to the importance of Africa to our sport. The depth of athletics talent on the African continent is unparalleled. It is therefore our duty as the global governing body of athletics to implement programmes like Kids’ Athletics to ensure that every child – including those who find themselves in refugee camps such as Kakuma – is offered the same chance to reach the highest echelons of our sport.

“World Athletics will always promote our sport in Africa through grassroots outreach, the development of sporting infrastructure across the region, and the hosting of athletics events.”

Barbara Moser-Mercer is coordinator of AHEEN and designer of its Athletics & Education programme. She is also a visiting professor at the University of Nairobi.

“The community showed up in the stadium and there were many more kids who had wanted to participate. This bodes well for the future expansion of the programme,” she said, reflecting on the workshop and Kids’ Athletics event.

“Both the teachers/coaches and the kids demonstrated incredible engagement and showed us just how crucial sport is for wellbeing, especially in fragile refugee contexts. World Athletics and AHEEN collaborated on the delivery of the Kids’ Athletics workshop and made considerable effort to adapt the programme to the refugee context, ensuring that all the activities fit and met the needs of the local community.”

For Catherine O’Sullivan, Kids’ Athletics Senior Manager at World Athletics, the workshop reinforced the importance of the programme and the work that has been done during the past few years.

“It was heartwarming to see Kids’ Athletics being applied in this setting, bringing positive experiences and smiles to children and young people living in very challenging conditions,” she said.

At the end of the event, food was shared, certificates were awarded, plenty of photos were taken and celebrations were had. The four days impacted heavily on teachers, children and the communities they came from. Athletics brought a positive experience and smiles to children and young people living in extremely challenging conditions. Athletics made them feel at home.

Kenya’s two-time Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge is to mentor the U20 World Athletics Athlete Refugee Team (ART), using his great experience in the sport to educate and inspire upcoming athletes.

Kipchoge will motivate the team members by sharing his knowledge and discipline in the sport, while also encouraging them to pursue their education and read books, which is one of his own passions. Committed to helping the underprivileged, the former world record-holder will also share life skills as part of the role, which he will hold through to next year’s World Athletics U20 Championships Lima 24.

Confirmation of Kipchoge’s mentorship, which will begin in January, coincides with the announcement of the Multistakeholder Pledge on Sport for Inclusion and Protection of Refugees, a commitment signed by more than 100 organisations represented at the Global Refugee Forum 2023, which gets under way today (13) in Geneva. As one of the signatories, and as part of the Sport for Refugee Coalition which it joined earlier this year, World Athletics reaffirmed its commitment to use sport to help improve the lives of stateless people around the world.

Held every four years, the Global Refugee Forum is the world’s largest international gathering on refugees. It is designed to support the practical implementation of the objectives set out in the Global Compact on Refugees: ease pressures on host countries, enhance refugee self-reliance, increase access to third-country solutions and improve conditions in countries of origin.

World Athletics’ pledge outlines the role that sport can play in improving the lives of refugees, including through sport programming, policy change, skill development, and communication and advocacy efforts.

The World Athletics Athlete Refugee Team, composed of athletes who have fled violence, conflict and injustice at home, was founded in 2016 and has since evolved into the world's only year-round full-time refugee team programme. The team made its first competitive appearance as part of the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Olympic Games and has competed at nearly every World Athletics Series event since. 

The U20 team was formed as a pilot in 2022, with the objective of presenting a well-prepared U20 ART for the World Athletics U20 Championships Lima 24.

Kenya’s 2007 world 800m champion Janeth Jepkosgei is head coach of the U20 ART, which is partly based at Kakuma Refugee Camp, located around 100km from the South Sudan border in east Africa, and Kapsabet, Kenya. Swiss educator Barbara Moser-Mercer leads the programme, supported by coach Arcade Arakaza, himself a refugee from Burundi, and now Kipchoge.

Earlier this month, World Athletics was part of a delegation including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Olympic Refugee Foundation (ORF), National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) and African Higher Education in Emergencies Network (AHEEN) that visited the Kakuma and Kalobeyei refugee camps in Kenya. World Athletics was invited to be part of the delegation by the ORF, recognising the work that World Athletics is doing in this domain.

Global Refugee Forum pledge: Sport for Inclusion and Protection of Refugees

“In its capacity as world governing body of athletics, World Athletics pledges to mobilise its sphere of influence to support the inclusion of refugee athletes in athletics events around the globe. We commit to providing them safe sport, promoting gender parity in our selection, educating them on safeguarding and offering academic and sport scholarships. Through our sponsor, Asics, they will benefit from our value in kind kit provision and will be eligible like any other athlete to win prize money.

“Together with our stakeholders, we will pursue and advocate for more World Athletics certified refugee coaches and support staff. We will offer media training courses for refugee athletes. In collaboration with the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), we will be diligent on the wellbeing of refugee athletes under our programme and advocate running clean in the spirit of fair play.

“During our World Athletics Series (WAS) events, refugee athletes will be treated like their fellow elite athletes, and we will maximise their presence by offering them ambassadorial opportunities to promote the sport and share its impact on their lives. All expenses to our World Athletics Series events will be covered by World Athletics.

“World Athletics will serve as the team’s member federation, and the team will compete under the Athlete Refugee Team flag.”

Athlete Refugee Team member Angelina Nadai Lohalith claimed a shock win at the European Champion Clubs Cup Cross Country in Castellon, Spain, on Sunday (05), marking the first time that an athlete in the World Athletics refugee team programme notched a victory in an international competition.

Lohalith, a native of South Sudan who is based in Kenya, surged from the field after four laps of the five-lap contest, clocking 27:55 over the 8.7km course to secure a five-second victory. Running confidently at the head of the pack from the gun, Lohalith pulled ahead after three laps and extended her lead to six seconds after the fourth lap before crossing the line unchallenged.

Lohalith, who was a member of the 2016 and 2021 Olympic Refugee Teams, was competing in Castellon as a guest for Tel Aviv’s Alley Runners Club, where several other Athlete Refugee Team members are based.

The 28-year-old is the Athlete Refugee Team’s most experienced runner.

Lohalith made her Athlete Refugee Team (ART) debut at the 2017 World Championships in London and in 2022 represented the Athlete Refugee Team at the World Indoor Championships Belgrade 22, the African Championships and the World Athletics Championships Oregon 22, competing over 1500m.

Lohalith's next international appearance will come at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships Bathurst 23, where she will compete with an ART quartet in the mixed relay.

Her appearance in Castellon was her first over a distance longer than 1500m, boding well for her planned transition to the 5000m and 10,000m events.

"After the World Championships in Oregon I came back to Kenya and I started to work harder towards my goal to succeed as a long distance runner,” Lohalith said.

“I am training hard all week – only training and sleeping. Even during Christmas, when all the athletes in the camp travelled back home, I stayed in the camp for training alone. I don't see my son and parents too often because I have a goal to improve further at the Olympics in Paris next year.”

Lohalith fled from her village in South Sudan at nine, settled in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya in 2002 and later began taking part in running competitions at her high school in the camp. Coaches for the Tegla Loroupe Foundation spotted her talent and invited her to join a training camp in Ngong, just outside Nairobi. In 2016, she was one of 10 refugee athletes selected to compete at the Rio Olympic Games under the Refugee Team flag, a selection that set the course for her steady rise since.

The postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games looked one step closer to reality in recent days with the staging of the athletics test events, the half marathon in Sapporo on Wednesday (5) and the Ready Steady Tokyo Athletics Meeting at the Olympic Stadium on Sunday (9). Athletes from around the world were tuning in to catch a glimpse of the courses, the facilities and the track they're hoping to compete on when the Games kick off in July, including two clusters of the Athlete Refugee Team from their bases in Tel Aviv and Ngong, Kenya.

One of them was Tachlowini Gabriyesos, a distance runner who trains with the Alley Runners club in Tel Aviv who achieved a major milestone at the Hahula Galilee Marathon on 14 March. Contesting the distance for just the second time, the 23-year-old Eritrean native clocked 2:10:55 to become the first refugee athlete to better an Olympic qualifying standard for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

"This (past) year was different because of the pandemic, but most of my training was as planned," said Gabriyesos, who has steadily moved up in distance over the past two seasons. He competed in the 5000m for the Athlete Refugee Team at the 2019 World Championships in Doha but in 2020 found a better fit with longer distances.

He was slated to compete at the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships in Gdynia, Poland, last October, but was unable to obtain a visa. So instead, two months later he improved his half marathon lifetime best to 1:02:21 in the prelude to his marathon breakthrough.

"I think I'm in better shape than I was last year, but physically and mentally it was hard to train with the pandemic restrictions."

Focusing on Tokyo has helped.

"The Olympics is my dream as a professional athlete and it would be a great honour to be part of the Refugee Olympic Team," he said. "I want to show others that everything is possible and they shouldn't give up."

Lokoro targeting second Olympic appearance

The International Olympic Committee will announce the composition of its second Refugee Olympic Team (this year competing as EOR, its French acronym) in early June. While the selection process is complex, quality of performance will play a key role. Paulo Amotun Lokoro, a refugee from South Sudan and a member of the inaugural team in Rio, is hoping to make the cut again.

But unlike Gabriyesos, who has largely managed to navigate the pandemic restrictions over the past year, Lokoro, who is based at the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation training camp in Ngong, wasn't as fortunate. The camp was forced to close during the first lockdown in Kenya in April of last year, forcing Lokoro to return to the Kakuma Refugee Camp where, training-wise, he found himself alone. He returned to Ngong in December and resumed training only to be forced into another lockdown situation in the beginning of March.

"It has been frustrating, we haven't had enough time to train," Lokoro said. "And during this lockdown the government has discouraged us from training in public and as a team, so we were training individually."

Lokoro finished 11th in his 1500m heat in Rio, clocking 4:03.96. He's improved steadily since, currently boasting a 3:44.10 lifetime best set in 2019. He also competed in Doha, but, suffering with a hamstring injury, didn't advance from the heats.

"In 2019 I was well prepared," he said. "My shape is different now, but we still hope to catch up before Tokyo."

World Athletics provides ongoing support

Since the IOC put the refugee athletes on the international stage in Rio five years ago, World Athletics has entered an Athlete Refugee Team (ART) in almost every major championship: the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships, the 2018 World Cross Country Championships, the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Relays and the 2020 World Athletics Half Marathon Championships. The African and European area federations have opened entry to refugee athletes based on their continents. Those competitive opportunities, coupled with generous scholarships from the IOC and ongoing training and logistical support from World Athletics, has made a difference.

Otmane Nait Hammou, a refugee from Morocco who is based in Sweden, made his Athlete Refugee Team debut at the 2018 World Cross Country Championships, competed in the steeplechase in Doha and more recently at the World Half Marathon Championships in Gdynia where he finished 67th, clocking 1:03:28 in his competitive debut over the distance and beating some of the world’s finest half-marathoners in the process. He's hoping for a spot on the steeplechase start line in Tokyo.

"World Athletics' support to compete at three World Championships did play a big role to keep me feeling hungry and motivated," he said. "With the solidarity support from the International Olympic Committee and my sponsors ON Running and Maurten and my French club ES Sartrouville, it has really made a difference.

"Honestly, it was really hard to keep motivated without having short term goals (during the pandemic), but you can't give up when it comes to the Olympic Games."

"We have been facing a lot of challenges, but at least we have been able to train individually," said Rose Nathike Lokonyen, a refugee from South Sudan who was the team's flag-bearer in Rio.

Before the pandemic hit, 5000m hopeful Ukuk Utho'o Bul said: "We were all training well, it was an Olympic year and we were preparing well. But when the pandemic came the camp closed so we all had to go back to where we came from. When we are training as a team there is a motivation. You always move forward, you motivate yourself. Then I was in a different place. I was alone and training alone. But we are trying our best."

In Lisbon, Dorian Keletela, a refugee from Congo, is aiming to be the first sprinter selected for the Refugee Olympic Team. Keletela, who competed in the 60m at the European Indoor Championships in March, has a 10.46 career best from 2020. He's hoping to compete at the European U23 Championships later this summer as well.