Yomi Omogbeja (12/06/2006)

Kenya, seven-time world champion and marathon world record-holder between 1998 and 2001, Tegla Loroupe, has been honoured for her outstanding sporting success and great humanitarian work with the 2006 Austrian Women’s Run Award.

Tegla grew up as one of 25 siblings. At the age of seven she started to run 10 km to school and 10 km back, every day.

She took part in several school competitions, but her potential was not discovered by the Kenyan Athletics Association until she was 15.

In 1994, Loroupe ran her first major marathon in New York and won. As a consequence she was idolized by many young people across the continent.

Her most successful years were 1998 and 1999, when she set a new marathon world record two times in a row - (2:20:47, Rotterdam in 1998) and (2:20:43, Berlin in 1999) - then the fastest ever times run by a woman over the marathon distance and remains till today the World record holder over one hour and for the 20k, 25k and 30k.

She went on to win almost all of the major marathons in the world. During the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, she suffered from food poisoning.

The 33-year-old is the first Kenyan to have been awarded the prestigious Georg von Opel Award for her active involvement in humanitarian projects locally and abroad.

The Austrian Women’s Run Award was introduced in 2004, and Loroupe has joined the prestigious list that include UN Special Ambassador, Somalian model Waris Dirie (2004) and US women’s running pioneer Kathrine Switzer (2005) in being honoured.