Kenyan champs watch from sidelines

Tegla Loroupe: dropped from the Kenyan team

By Jenny Horrocks in Edmonton

The atmosphere is starting to build as athletes recovering from their long journeys get back on the practice track and begin to focus on the task ahead.

Kenya's Tegla Loroupe, the world's fastest woman over the marathon distance, is enjoying Edmonton - despite the fact that she cannot compete here.

Both she and the Olympic 1500m champion, Noah Ngeny, were dropped from the Kenyan team for refusing to return to Kenya and train together with the rest of the team.

Loroupe spent Thursday afternoon in what Canadians claim is the biggest shopping mall in the world, with over 800 shops.

After her shopping spree she was clutching bags, not full of trendy clothes, but of books for her sister's children back in West Pokot.

Moral support

Although she said she would feel frustrated sitting in the audience when her event, the women's 10,000m, comes around, she said she was glad she had come, and that she had been touched by people's sympathy for her situation.

The two champions will watch from the stands

And she has some moral support from someone who is going through the same thing.

When she got a telephone call from Noah Ngeny, who lives in London, she said: "What are you doing there? Come to Edmonton, and we can watch the athletics together."

If results do not go Kenya's way, Kenyan officials might even feel some regret at axing these two.

But Loroupe says the federation has apologised to her so many times for dropping her from Kenya's team selection in the past, that it does not really mean much to her any more.

She feels she is being victimised, and even said she may look further afield, and compete for Uganda, where the Pokot people also live.

But there will be 23 other Kenyans competing in Edmonton over the next 9 days and no doubt Ngeny and Loroupe will be cheering them as loudly as anyone.