In it for the long run: Marathon man Eliud Kipchoge isn’t done yet

Over the past 20 years, Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge has shattered records and smashed preconceptions of what humans can achieve. Now aged 38, the marathon man has no plans to hang up his trainers yet.

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Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge has made himself a living legend in sport over the last 20 years, and he is showing no sign of stopping or slowing down.

The long-distance runner became the first human in history to run a sub-two-hour unofficial marathon in 2019 as part of the INEOS 1:59 Challenge, recording a staggering time of 1:59:40 in Vienna.

But now he is in the unusual position of being on the comeback trail, having had his official latest marathon record – of 2:01:09 in Berlin in September 2022 – broken by compatriot Kelvin Kiptum in October’s Chicago marathon in the US. 

Euronews spoke with Eliud Kipchoge about his greatest achievements, motivations, and future ambitions in sport and beyond.

Tokunbo Salako, Euronews:

“First of all, I just wanted to congratulate you on receiving the Princess of Asturias Award for Sport. How did you feel when you heard about it?”

Eliud Kipchoge, Athlete, Princess of Asturias Award for Sport winner:

“I was really overwhelmed to learn that I am among the few who will be actually awarded, especially in my field as far as sport is concerned, but specifically running.”

Tokunbo Salako:

“You’ve been variously described as a gift to sport, a gift to humanity. Some people say you’re the perfect marriage between mind and body, the athlete’s athlete. What does it feel like when you hear those types of descriptions talking about you and your illustrious career?”

Eliud Kipchoge:

“I feel really motivated. I feel inspired that I’ve been spared something in some way in this universe, and that’s a huge motivation. And, you know, we are living on this planet, and this planet belongs to all of us, and we need to inspire everybody in this world. We need to live in harmony. We need to live in peace. We need to enjoy living actually in this world. And that’s what hopefully I am working for.”

‘Real success is mastery of what you are doing’

Tokunbo Salako:

“Is that the secret of your success? This desire to want to inspire others because you’ve been at the top for 20 years? In any field that’s remarkable.”

Eliud Kipchoge:

“Oh, I think the real success [is] mastery of what you are doing. You know, I mastered what I am doing in running, and I realised the more I do better, the more I inspire someone. The more I do better, the more I send positive vibes to a kid. The more I do better, I might inspire someone to get out of the door in the morning and start running for themselves.”

Tokunbo Salako:

“You’re known for so many things Olympic titles, world championship titles, breaking marathon records, and quite recently in 2019, when you were the first person on earth in history to run a marathon in under two hours. What did that feel like?”

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Eliud Kipchoge:

“It feels great to make history […] That signifies that there is no limit, as far as humanity is concerned. That’s why I always say no human is limited. So I’m showing people the way that you don’t have to be a real professional runner to break your limits. You might be a teacher, an educationalist, an engineer, or a lawyer, but you need to break your own limited circle in this world in order to enjoy life. I believe that life is about challenging yourself. I believe that life is about taking a nap the whole night and looking up in the morning as a new day approaches with a new challenge and handling that challenge and you know, pushing forward.”

‘It’s not about being awarded as a record holder, it’s about making history’

Tokunbo Salako:

“How did you feel then after breaking that record and then having the world athletic authorities not recognise it?”

Eliud Kipchoge:

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“I was not running for the athletics bodies. I was running to help the human family. I trusted the six billion human family to have respect for what I am doing. It’s not about being awarded as a record holder, it’s about making history and making a change in this world. I’m happy I’ve made history in this sport. I’m happy because I’ve shown people that nothing is actually permanent in this world. I’m happy because I’ve injected a bit of inspiration to many, many billions of people in this world.”

‘Longevity is the key in sport’

Tokunbo Salako:

I don’t know if you’re wearing those shoes now, which are called the ‘super shoes‘ that so many athletes have been wearing over the last few years, breaking records. Your own marathon record was broken just earlier this month. Are you planning to get it back?

Eliud Kipchoge:

“Oh, I’m still hungry to run fast. I’m still hungry to show the world that I can run fast. I’m still hungry to show the next generation, the kids, that I still want to run for longer. Longevity is the key in sport. Longevity is the key in any profession. And you know, records are there to be broken. It shows the beauty of sport and that somebody somewhere is working for it.”

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Tokunbo Salako:

“For people who are not familiar with these ‘super shoes’. Can you tell us a bit about them and a bit more about how they work?”

Eliud Kipchoge:

“Oh, the Super Shoes […] they prevent real impact from the asphalt or the tarmac to your muscles. The aim of running is to take care of your muscles. The aim of the people of the company is to make sure that you are becoming fit but at the same time taking care of your muscles.

‘I use fame and fortune to inspire young people’

Tokunbo Salako:

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“Now away from the track and the road, how do you deal with the fame and fortune?”

Eliud Kipchoge:

“First I treat myself as a human being, and I know fame and fortune are things I collect when they are coming in. I say thank you for the fame and fortune. And I use the fame and fortune to inspire the young people.”

Tokunbo Salako:

“I know that you’ve put a lot of your fame and fortune into your foundation. Tell us more about that, how that started and its aims and achievements.”

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Eliud Kipchoge:

“One time I was sat down thinking about where I came from and that we had a limited education. I know what made us not prosper was [a] lack of reach – that thing that could carry us towards a good education. 

“I also know that in sports we need good air. So, two things came to my mind, conservation of the environment and education. I formed the Eliud Kipchoge Foundation, which deals purely with these two factors. Education and taking care of our planet. Because I trusted that if we make our world clean, we would make our waters blue and we would have real clean air. I trust that education is the key to propel sport. I trust that education is the key to taking people to places around the world. I trust that education is what makes you actually mingle with people and develop a conscience and work towards making this world a running world, and a peaceful world. 

So, my foundation is building kindergartens, and libraries where small kids go because if you give children good groundwork, that’s the way.”

And after that if there’s a library in school, and it’s full of books, I trust the knowledge in books and kids can get knowledge.

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Tokunbo Salako:

“That’s a fitting message on which to end this. We’re running out of time, but it would be remiss of me not to ask you. We already spoke about that record that you’re going for. What are your future ambitions?”

Eliud Kipchoge:

“My future ambition is to make this world a running world. I trust that if all of us can run in the world we can make this world a happy one. We can unite together and enjoy this one.”

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Who are the ‘dalalas’? The middlemen preying on trapped domestic staff in Saudi Arabia

Many foreign domestic workers in Saudi Arabia are forced to work in terrible conditions, often with abusive employers. However, they are trapped because of a system that ties their working rights in the country to the employer. Enter the dalalas, middlemen who prowl Facebook, offering desperate women help to flee their employers for better jobs and improved working conditions. These shadowy figures promise to help, but in reality, they are preying on the most vulnerable.

A video posted on YouTube in late 2022 shows about a dozen veiled women standing in a room together. The women are asking for help, most of them speaking Swahili. One of the women in the video says that they are domestic workers who are trapped in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia after fleeing their employers. 

Victimes des dalalas à Jeddah. © Observers

Some of us are very sick and can’t help themselves, we have some who have gone mad but we dont get any help. In case one of us is sick there is no help […] Some of us have been for six months without work, we have waited and we are tired.

In the time since the video appeared online, these women have been able to leave Saudi Arabia. But who are they? In Kenya, women like them are known as “kembois,” domestic workers who have left their legal employers in the Gulf States and are now undocumented. 

The nickname comes from Kenyan runner Ezekiel Kemboi, winner of the 3000-metre steeplechase at four World Championships and two Olympics.

Kemboi can also be used as a verb, meaning to flee one’s employer. 

Many of the African women who travel to the Gulf States to work as domestic workers find themselves caught in terrible working conditions. One of the reasons for that is the problematic “kafala” system, whereby foreign workers must be sponsored by a local employer, meaning that their legal status in the country is tied to that person. In many cases, the employer will take the workers’ passports, exerting total control over their lives.

Saudi Arabia did institute some reforms to the system in March 2021, but according to the NGO Migrants Rights, which defends the rights of workers in the Gulf States, most of the most vulnerable, including domestic workers, are still trapped in the situation. 

And so, if you have an abusive employer, you have two options. Stay and finish your legal contract. Or flee and become a “kemboi”, which can often be just as dangerous.

‘If you run away, you leave without papers’

Debra Nyanchoka was a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia for two years between February 2020 and March 2022. Since returning to Kenya, she has been trying to spread the word about the people who prey on women who have left their employers. 

Dans cette vidéo, Debra Nyanchoka, une kenyane et ancienne domestique en Arabie Saoudite pendant 2 ans, met en garde les domestiques qui songeraient à s’enfuir de chez leur employeur
Dans cette vidéo, Debra Nyanchoka, une kenyane et ancienne domestique en Arabie Saoudite pendant 2 ans, met en garde les domestiques qui songeraient à s’enfuir de chez leur employeur © Debra Nyanchoka

In this video, Debra Nyanchoka, a Kenyan woman who was a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia for two years, warns women who are thinking about running away from their employer about the people who may try to prey on them.

She spoke to our team about the risks that the women who flee face: 

Your passport is confiscated by your boss and all official documents. They keep them for you until you finish your contract. So if you run away, you leave without papers and cannot access any medical facility. But the end result become that you lose basic protection from the government of whichever country that you are in, because now, you are on the loose.

‘You become a hot commodity to a broker when you run away’

The women who flee their employers often hope they’ll find better working conditions somewhere else in Saudi Arabia. But the reality is often different. The domestic workers who flee often end up working for abusive middlemen, nicknamed “dalalas” in Swahili. These shadowy figures exploit migrants in vulnerable situations. 

In another video posted on her YouTube channel, Debra Nyanchoka talks about these middlemen and their motivations. 

Debra Nyanchoka détaille les différences entre “kembois” et “dalalas”
Debra Nyanchoka détaille les différences entre “kembois” et “dalalas” © Debra Nyanchoka

Dalala is somebody who was once a house maid. When you cry online about your situation at your employers’ house, a dalala might see your message and they will contact you. They say they will save you, and you become a hot commodity to a broker when you run away. So they will help you run away first. They send you a taxi to pick you up from your workplace and bring you to your next location. At that moment, you become business to those dalalas. They will then connect you to get jobs paid under the table. And they will receive a payment for offering your services to bosses who cannot afford to labour from outside of the country. […] without kembois, the dalalas are nothing. So when someone encourages you to run away, ask yourself: why is this person is trying to make me run away fom my workplace?”

In fact, there are tons of Facebook posts by dalalas offering their services, just waiting for someone naive and desperate enough to ask for their help. 

Promising security and better working conditions, the dalalas offer, in exchange for cash, to pick up a domestic worker who wants to leave her employer and bring her to a safe place, as shown in these Facebook posts.

“Hosting ladies in Riyadh at affordable price [sic],” says this post. The second part, in Swahili, reads: “Those who want to “kemboi”, send a private message to find out more 🤗”
“Hosting ladies in Riyadh at affordable price [sic],” says this post. The second part, in Swahili, reads: “Those who want to “kemboi”, send a private message to find out more 🤗” © Facebook

This post is offering “help” to vulnerable domestic workers who want to leave their employers in different towns in Saudi Arabia. Note that the post asks to be paid in cash.
This post is offering “help” to vulnerable domestic workers who want to leave their employers in different towns in Saudi Arabia. Note that the post asks to be paid in cash. © Facebook

This is another post offering women help leaving their employer.
This is another post offering women help leaving their employer. © Facebook

In a comment under this post, someone talks about the terrible experience they are having after fleeing their employer:

I can’t advise someone’s child to kemboi. Saudi has changed alot, these women especially in Riyadh are beasts, you can work a whole month and madam can choose not to pay you, afterall you can’t report her. Another thing Africans are being deported in large number […]. There’s no security here […] someone who hosts you can choose to throw you anytime if you delay paying rent, lastly Kenyans out here are so wicked[…]. A times I real want to go back to my employer but I know they can slaughter me [sic].

A former domestic worker tricked, exploited and sexually abused

Our team spoke to a Kenyan woman who we are calling Mary who went to Saudi Arabia to work as domestic worker. She told us that life was very difficult with her legal employer: “Life was not easy. I could go hungry in my employer’s house. More work, less food, less sleep.” 

Mary decided to post about her bad experiences in a Facebook group. A woman who saw her post said she could help, promising Mary a better life with less work and more freedom. 

The woman said she would help Mary for 3,500 Saudi riyals (equivalent to 885 euros). Mary decided to take the woman up on her offer and gave the woman her address: “I shared my location with her and she sent a driver who picked me when I went to throw litter by the road”. 

After picking Mary up, the driver dropped her at the home of this woman, who turned out to be a dalala. 

Mary didn’t have the money to pay the woman back for the escape. So the dalala told her “to accept any job available to get some money and pay for transportation and driver. I accepted, she told me to get ready for anything. Then she came with two men. They just used me as a sex toy. That is how they recovered the money they were demanding from me.”

Mary didn’t want to tell us how she was able to escape and return to Kenya. 

‘Domestic workers who want to change employers due to abuse, non-payment, or whatever reason, often have no one else to turn to’

The NGO Migrants Rights says that dalalas are often from the same country as the domestic workers they prey on. Sometimes they are former domestic workers themselves. In other cases, dalalas pretend to work for “recruitment agencies.”

Rima Kalush is the spokesperson for Migrant Rights: 

They can and do exploit co-nationals. But they exist because there are needs not being met by the state. Domestic workers who want to change employers due to abuse, non-payment, or whatever reason, often have no one else to turn to – under the sponsorship system, all migrant workers can encounter difficulties in changing employers, but domestic workers face the greatest restrictions. Brokers can and do take advantage of this vulnerability, but the source of the problem is the lack of labour protections for domestic workers. In local (origin and destination country) media reporting, you will often see government officials blaming women for leaving their employers and being lured by these brokers, without really acknowledging why people have to leave in the first place.

The United Nations’ body, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), is aware of the issue. They do run programs to help migrant workers return to their home countries. However, it is often hard to access undocumented workers. 

“It is difficult for the Government of Kenya to trace where the migrants are, as runaways hardly get in touch with the embassy to update on their location,” said Yvonne Ndege, the spokesperson for the IOM in East Africa. 

Our team reached out to the Kenyan Embassy in Saudi Arabia about the situation of undocumented Kenyan domestic workers. However, we didn’t get a response.

This article was written in collaboration with Hillary Ingati / RFI Kiswahili

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