Taking training to new heights
High-altitude Kenyan town welcomes Olympic champions and amateurs alike
Olympic heritage
Iten is home to some 42,000 people, mostly subsistence farmers, and it has also been a temporary home to plenty of world champions, including two-time Olympic gold medalists Eliud Kipchoge (marathon) and David Rudisha (800m), both of Kenya. British four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah would train in Iten for months at a time.
The town was declared a World Athletics Heritage Landmark in 2019, and proudly calls itself the "Home of Champions".
Lornah Kiplagat, a Kenyan-born three-time Olympian for the Netherlands, attended high school in Iten and now runs a training center here for runners who want to up their game.
"If you train at 2,400 meters, your lungs expand, your red blood cells increase, and so when you go to low altitude you feel like you are flying," explained Kiplagat, the 2008 world half-marathon champion.
