Breaking into the Arena When Kenya made its Olympic debut in 1956, not a single woman was on the team. For decades, Kenyan athletics was framed by the silhouette of the male runner — the Kip Keinos, the Naftali Temus, and later the David Rudishas. The nation’s sports archives, until recently, told a narrow story … Read more
“They didn’t just box — they marched. They didn’t just punch — they executed.”So went the mythos of Kenya’s most feared sporting machine of the 1970s and 80s: the Hit Squad, the national boxing team that once stood toe-to-toe with the world’s best — and more often than not, knocked them out cold. This is … Read more
For decades, the question has lingered on tracks, in locker rooms, and in university labs: Why are Kenyans so good at running? Every Olympic Games, the world watches a familiar parade of lean, tenacious athletes from a small group of rural Kenyan communities dominate the middle- and long-distance races. But to reduce this phenomenon to … Read more
In 1987, a football game changed the social architecture of one of Kenya’s oldest and poorest slums. It was not televised. It didn’t end with trophies. Yet it marked the beginning of a grassroots revolution whose scale and durability are difficult to exaggerate. What began as a small community football tournament in Nairobi’s Mathare Valley … Read more