High-altitude Kenyan town adapts as Olympic champions, amateurs flock to rarefied air
As dawn breaks over the sleepy town of Iten, its dusty tracks come alive with packs of runners keeping rhythm, often followed by cheerful children headed to school.
Some of the athletes are elite Kenyans. Others travel from farther afield.
All are here because this unassuming little town lies at about 2,400 metres (8,000 feet) above sea-level and has produced some of the best long-distance runners in the world.
To cater to the ever-growing interest from both professional and amateur athletes, hotels, lodges and short-stay rental apartments continue to spring up around the town, located 350 kilometres northwest of Nairobi.
"I came to Kenya to feel this elite running community here," said Ryan Mex of Malta.
Mex, a semi-professional runner and coach, brought three athletes with him to get a competitive edge ahead of Malta's marathon season.
It's his first time here.
"Next time I want to come with a larger group since we really like the training environment here," Mex said. "This is the best place in the world to come for a training camp."
Town produces Olympic champions
Iten is home to some 42,000 people, mostly subsistence farmers, and it has also been a temporary home to plenty of world champions, including two-time Olympic gold medallist Eliud Kipchoge (marathon) and David Rudisha (800m), both of Kenya. British four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah would train in Iten for months at a time.
The town was declared a World Athletics Heritage Landmark in 2019 and proudly calls itself the "Home of Champions."
'You feel like you are flying'
Lornah Kiplagat, a Kenyan-born three-time Olympian for the Netherlands, attended high school in Iten and now runs a training centre here for runners who want to up their game.
"If you train at 2,400 metres, your lungs expand, your red blood cells increase, and so when you go to low altitude you feel like you are flying," explained Kiplagat, the 2008 world half-marathon champion.
Amanal Petros, a top marathoner from Germany, spends six months at Kiplagat's center every year. Born in the Eritrean highlands, he was accustomed to running at high altitude but Iten's elevation isn't the only reason why he keeps coming back.
"I've trained in many places in the USA and Europe," he said. "Organizing a training partner in Europe is not easy. But in Iten, the home of champions, wherever you go you find a lot of athletes who can train with you."
Jean Paul Fourier opened the Kerio View Hotel in 2002 starting with a just few rooms. It now has capacity for 50 guests and includes a fitness centre.
"I made a small investment and it has really grown," he said.
The main season runs from April to September.
"We see many foreigners flocking to not only my hotel but also neighbouring hotels. There are many hotels springing up around the area, but we still get our share of visitors," he said.
Before the boom
One man here still remembers what Iten was like before all this happened: Brother Colm O'Connell, former headmaster at St. Patrick's High School, whose alumni include Rudisha, Vivian Cheruiyot, Matthew Birir and Brimin Kipruto.
O'Connell first came to Iten to teach in 1976.
"It was just a scattering of houses and a school called St. Patrick's," he said. "That was really the starting point of what Iten eventually became, what we see today."
The town's transformation started "when the sport became professional," he said.
"Before that, athletes were confined to their place of work. But when professionalism came in, athletes could now sit down with their managers and with shoe companies and decide no, I can become a full-time career athlete."
The rest, as they say, is history. O'Connell went on to transform the athletics program at St. Patrick's, and 25 of his students became world champions, some of whom came back here to run their own athletics programs.
The town around the school boomed, as runners from all over the world discovered its training potential. O'Connell estimates that in peak season there are around 500 visiting runners in the town at any one time.
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