Sport history, gender studies, and African cultural history

Given that running and jogging are two of the publicly most practised sports, it is nonetheless staggering to see that some sections of the history of this beautiful sport are still critically underrepresented and only little research has been done in the area. One of those sections is that of Kenyan women who have been very successful over the last decades. Yet their history remains largely unknown to the wider public; and only running afficionados know the detailed story. The volume discussed here Kenya’s Running Women aims to close that gap.

Michelle Sikes has delivered a comprehensive history of Kenya’s running women. Her book starts with the moment Pauline Konga “emerged as a heroine, from the obscure” during the 5000m final at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games where she won the silver medal. This is a key moment upon which the book hinges. It has since become somewhat the norm that Kenyan women, if they do not always win, they are always favourites in any middle and long distance race. However, as Sikes aptly writes, Konga’s achievement was the result of decades, if not centuries of struggle of women to overcome a system that systematically disadvantaged women. Her success “opened a new chapter for Kenyan women athletes”. (p. xi)

The book contains five chapters, each dedicated to a period. The introduction thereby serves not only as the framework for the study but also provides some important historical background to sport in Africa, which of course has been marked by European colonialism and its aftermath. Sikes has provided one of the first academic works solely dedicated to the history of the Kenya’s female runners. She argues that sport should be taken more serious by scholars even though it appears “trivial, light … and not on a par with the grave problems the continent faces …” (p. xiii). Well, it may seem trivial in the face of the development of historical sports studies, but as a matter of fact, sports history is also gender history: women have largely been excluded from sports. The former British colonies, Kenya among them, are no exception.

In this chapter, the racist machinations of the International Olympic Committee come to light, as the then president of IOC, Avery Brundage, changed the place of the annual IOC meeting in 1962 from Nairobi to Baden-Baden at the very last minute.

Chapter one details how British colonial rule tapped into an already segregated society; men were moving across the land to herd the cattle while their women stayed at home. The British did not need to install new rules for sports but added a racial stratification to an already divided society. Worse, the future leaders of Kenyan sports were educated at British schools and thus inherited a system that disadvantaged women systematically. Despite this, it was the schools that led the change for sports for girls and women in Kenya by opening athletics events to them (p. 17). Initially, limited access was granted which then was extended.

The following chapter is dedicated to Kenya finding its feet as a nation and the problems associated with this process. Notably, the case of Diana Monks, a white Kenyan-born runner who was excluded from the 1967 East African Games and the Olympics the following year. She was excluded on the ground that by missing a meet she has been disloyal to her country and therefore was banned for two years. The ensuing debate remained unsuccessful and the ban stood. Monks however, enjoyed success in other sports such as hockey and was never questioned again about her allegiances to her home country. The Kenya Amateur Athletic Association were fortunate as other athletes such as Lydia Stephens, Tecla Chemabwai and Elizabeth Chesire won medals at the 1967 East African Championships.

In this chapter, the racist machinations of the International Olympic Committee come to light, as the then president of IOC, Avery Brundage, changed the place of the annual IOC meeting in 1962 from Nairobi to Baden-Baden at the very last minute. The reason was the refusal of Kenyan authorities to let an all-white South African delegation enter the country. While Brundage may have won that battle, it was African countries that won the entire war: South Africa did not participate at the Olympics between 1964 and 1988. This section also highlights the problems and issues Kenya was facing as a new nation; surely the stories were similar for other African countries.

The third section looks at the period between the late 1960s and the late 1980s when athletics was increasingly professionalised and pro athletes were finally allowed to participate at the Olympics. The numbers of Kenyan female runners at high schools increased year-on-year yet sharply declined in older age groups. The reason for this were the still dominant gender perceptions which ecpected girls to become mothers and stay at home. Leaving school early without a degree made girls dependent; however, there are exceptions from the rule like Ruth Waithera who not only decided to stay unmarried but also took the contraceptive pill. It made her an outlier at the time.

To wrap up, chapters four and five look at the expansion of track and field for women, thus the full inclusion into the sport. However, issues such as substandard training venues for women in Africa remained and possibly remain today, while their male counterparts enjoyed far better conditions, mostly in the United States in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and a few years later the Title IX law opened up for female African athletes to pursue their careers as professional runners. This development is the topic of chapter five which details how women become professionals and patrons for their families.

In a report for the German state broadcaster ZDF, 17-year old Faith Cherotich describes her life as a youth runner and talks about the hopes that have been bestowed upon her. At this age, many of her predecessors of the 1960s and 1970s had already abandoned their sport due to marriage and pregnancy. Only a few have picked up running after giving birth. The story of Cherotich signifies some progress for Kenyan female runners yet also shows that the expectations are high and may be too high for others. Faith Cherotich, however, has succeeded; she won the 3000m steeple chase at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo and the year before the won the bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. This is an important topic in Sikes’ book which she touches upon in the final chapter of her book. She describes that women runners of Kenya have become equal to men which besides fame also include responsibility for their families.

This is a work of labour but also a labour of love, as Sikes is a former professional runner as well as an historian. For this study she draws on archival research and interviews to illuminate the triumphs, challenges and strategies of the pioneer generation of Kenyan women runners, making this book valuable for readers interested in sport history, gender studies, and African cultural history.

Copyright © Christoph Wagner 2026