Marathon: 2:20:43 [2] Tegla Chepkite Loroupe (born 9 May 1973) is a former Kenyan long-distance track and road runner.

[3] Tegla Loroupe was born in Kapsait village in the Lelan division of West Pokot District.

Her father and mother are from the Pokot tribe, a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting parts of northern Kenya, eastern Uganda and southern Ethiopia.

She spent her childhood working fields, tending cattle and looking after younger brothers and sisters.

At school, she became aware of her potential as an athlete when she won races held over a distance of 800 or 1500 meters against much older students.

She began to train to compete internationally the following year, earning her first pair of running shoes in 1989, which she wore only for particularly rough races.

As a consequence she was idolised by many young people in Africa: at last, a woman champion to complement the many successful male runners.

[7] During the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, favoured to win both the marathon and the 10,000 meters, she suffered from violent food poisoning the night before the race.

Nevertheless, she fought through the marathon race, finishing 13th, then, the next day, ran the 10,000 metres, finishing 5th,[1] running barefoot in both races, a feat she later stated she achieved out of a sense of duty to all the people taking her as a bearer of hope in her home country.

[8] In 2006, she was named a United Nations Ambassador of Sport by Secretary General Kofi Annan, together with Roger Federer, tennis champion from Switzerland, Elias Figueroa, Latin American soccer legend from Chile, and Katrina Webb paralympics gold medalist from Australia.

[9] She has established a school (Tegla Loroupe Peace Academy) and orphanage for children from the region in Kapenguria, a high-mountain town in north-west Kenya.

In December 2006, she travelled with George Clooney, Joey Cheek, and Don Cheadle to Beijing, Cairo, and New York on a diplomatic mission to bring an end to violence in Darfur.

She won the "Community Hero" category at the 2007 Kenyan Sports Personality of the Year awards.

[11] running the New York Marathon alongside founder Toby Tanser and actress Sarah Jones[12] finishing in 3:54:02.

[3] At those games Loroupe was inducted into the Olympians for life project for her work in promoting peace.