There is a continuing debate about East African running success. Few studies have considered wealth as a key motivation behind wanting to run. This article focuses upon the motivations of Kenyan women who choose to participate in professional running and the impact on them, their families and wider communities. Much of the fieldwork for this study took place in and around the town of Eldoret. It encourages researchers interested in sport in Africa to develop a political economy approach to running and to critically evaluate the claims made for sport as a resource of hope. [L'entreprenariat en tant que ressource d'espoir? Des voix s'élèvent depuis Eldoret.] Il y a un débat qui se poursuit au sujet du succès dans l'émergence de l'Afrique de l'Est. Peu d'études ont considéré la richesse comme étant une motivation clé derrière le désir d'entreprendre. Cet article se concentre sur les motivations des femmes kenyanes qui choisissent de participer à la gestion d'entreprise et son impact sur elles, sur leurs familles et sur les communautés plus étendues. Une grande partie du travail sur le terrain et pour cette étude, a eu lieu dans et autour de la ville d'Eldoret. Il encourage les chercheurs qui s'intéressent au sport en Afrique à développer une approche d'économie politique à l'exécution et à l'évaluation critique des demandes formulées pour le sport en tant que ressource d'espoir. Mots-clés: courir au Kenya  ; les femmes  ; les chances de la vie  ; les motivations  ; les richesses  ; les ressources

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The colonial era in Kenya was a pivotal and transitional period during which aspects of local peoples’ existing gender roles and relations were challenged, renegotiated and, in the case of running, confirmed. British colonial intent to introduce running as sport to men aligned with Rift Valley societies that condoned male, though not female, running. Indigenous ideas and ways of living could operate in tandem with the historically masculine orientation of Western athletics, leaving a legacy of cultural synthesis that significantly constrained Kenyan women’s sporting prospects. Histories of sport in Kenya, and elsewhere, should take into account both external and local gender norms, as they existed prior to colonial contact, to understand better the gendered mechanisms through which sport “diffused” to empire.

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The Supreme Council for Sport in Africa announced that all independent African nations would boycott all British sport if the British Lions rugby team toured South Africa in 1974. Despite condemnation from segments of the British public, entreaties from government ministers, and African threats, the rugby tour went ahead. This article adds to a large body of scholarship on the struggle against apartheid in sport, within which the 1974 Lions tour has received little attention, and focuses on the transnational efforts to stop that tour led by Kenya and independent Africa. Calls for reprisals across the continent were not unanimous, and the disparity of African reactions challenges perceptions of the “Africa bloc” as a monolith guaranteed to maintain a united front on anti-apartheid sport activity. Reactions to the tour anticipated events two years later at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and this event became a test case for strategies designed to isolate South Africa through punitive actions against third-party nations that broke ranks.