It is half an hour before dawn in the Ethiopian highlands, and most of the town of Bekoji still slumbers in the shadows of a 14,000-ft.-high (4,300 m high) volcano. On the streets, though, a silent army is on the move. More than a hundred boys and girls — many in bare feet, some no taller than the goats feeding by the roadside — gravitate toward a vast, grassy plateau on Bekoji’s outskirts. There, a man with a stopwatch, local running coach Santayehu Eshetu, is waiting. So intense is the hunger here for running — and its rewards — that Eshetu’s workouts, initially meant for 25 athletes, now draw 150 or more. Focused and serious, the runners listen to his words of guidance before taking off across the plateau, their feet slapping the earth in thunderous unison. “I have no doubt,” says Eshetu, “that one of these kids will be world champion.”
Anywhere else, that comment might be an idle boast. In Bekoji, it is a virtual guarantee. By an improbable quirk of history, this small community of farmers and herders along the Great Rift Valley (pop. 33,000) has become the world’s leading producer of distance runners.
More in Time.
