Hugged, cheered and adorned with garlands, the first man to run an official marathon in under two hours has returned as a hero to his home village in Kenya.
Sabastian Sawe, who stunned the world when he clocked 1h 59m 30s in the London Marathon last weekend, flew in a Kenyan military plane normally reserved for special operations on Thursday to his home region of western Kenya.
Waiting on the runway at a small airport perched on an escarpment 2,150 metres above sea level, Lydia Sawe was trembling with anxious excitement, hands clasped around a huge bouquet of orange roses, as her husband’s aircraft touched down.
The plane door opened and the 31-year-old runner locked eyes with his wife and, beaming, made a beeline for her arms. “Congratulations, darling,” she whispered in his ear, tears streaming down her face.
Sawe, who broke the world record by 65 seconds, signed a visitor book in the little VIP lounge at Eldoret airport and hugged a line of ecstatic friends and locals. He was given a wreath made from the sinendet plant, which symbolises victory within his Kalenjin ethnic group, and fed fermented milk from a gourd by Lydia to celebrate his win.
“The victory that took place last Sunday was not just my victory, it was a victory for all of us,” he said in Kiswahili, addressing the jubilant local community that had gathered to welcome him at the airport entrance.
“I’m so happy to be home and … welcomed this much, I’m so grateful,” he told the Guardian.
Famous runners are nothing new to this high-altitude part of Kenya. In the towns and villages around the city of Eldoret, in the Great Rift Valley, life is about farming crops, tending to livestock and nurturing the next generation of world record-breaking distance runners.
Every day, the red dirt roads that weave between modest homesteads and maize fields are pounded by the trainers of thousands of hopeful, driven young runners.
People living in and growing up in Eldoret are often able to become good distance runners because people living and training at altitude produce more red blood cells to deal with the lower-oxygen environment. When competing at lower altitudes, the greater number of red blood cells can boost oxygen delivery to muscles, resulting in better endurance and performance.
Sabastian’s grandmother Vivian Kimaru had also had sporting success. “I competed in Munich’s 1972 Olympic Games in 1500 and 800m and reached the semi-final,” she said. “I’m so proud,” she said of her grandson, speaking from his parents’ home in Ndonyongaria village where the celebrations continued.
People sat under marquees and women danced on grass in between bursts of torrential rain while traditional music boomed from a sound system. After speeches and prayers, mounds of rice, sauteed cabbage, beef stew and chapati were served.
Sawe’s victory on Sunday was followed by days of rushing around, and he arrived in Kenya on Wednesday night to chaotic crowds at Nairobi’s international airport.
At a lavish welcome event and breakfast at the presidential residence, the president, William Ruto, who is also from Eldoret and of the same Kalenjin community, said Sawe’s achievement was “not merely a sporting triumph, it is a defining moment in the story of human endurance”.
He presented Sawe with two cheques totalling 8m shillings (£46,000), one for winning the race and the other for breaking the world record. Sawe also received car number plates showing his record time. In return, Sawe gave the president one of his racing shoes with 1.59.30 written in marker pen on the sole.
Running is not a hobby or pastime in and around Eldoret; it is seen as a route to wealth that is often unattainable by other means. Runners are spurred on by a desire for a better life through sponsorship deals, race wins and athletics scholarships at foreign universities and prestigious academies.
Emmy Biwott, 45, the director of Uasin Gishu county government primary school, who had come to the airport to welcome Sawe, said athletes were “our cash crop”. In the area, “90% of those people who are doing well are athletes”, she said.
Toby Tanser, an author of books on Kenyan running and the founder of Shoe4Africa, a running and Aids awareness charity, said money was the motivation behind the region’s running success. Six of the 10 fastest male marathoners in history and four of the fastest females marathoners have come from Kenya.
In Sawe’s village, Tanser said: “You’ll not see a single fun runner, a charity runner or just running for health. People around here run for a way out of poverty. Nearly every famous Kenyan runner has come from a village setting.”
Away from the crowd, in the living room of her parents-in-law, Lydia, sat with close family and friends. How would life change for her family, which includes three sons? “I can’t even imagine,” she said.
“It will be so strange,” she said of the future. “We will be [going] somewhere. I will be someone.”
