Kenyan athletes in the French road racing market: From the prospect of emancipation to the weight of discrimination

Beyond its emancipatory virtues, which have led to the domination of Kenyan athletes at sporting level (even for second-rank athletes), the French road racing market has emerged as a sporting arena fueling forms of discrimination based on a national, even racialist, logic, as well as on gender, placing Kenyan athletes (and especially female ones) at a disadvantage. This socio-historical study is based on archival analysis and fifteen semi-structured interviews with race organizers, sports agents, officials from the Fédération Française d’Athlétisme (FFA) (French Athletics Federation), and Kenyan athletes. The consulted archives include the specialized magazines L’Athlétisme, the FFA’s press organ, and VO2 Magazine (a magazine specializing in running), as well as institutional archives in the form of congress proceedings for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the FFA’s governing bodies since 1960. These different sources highlight three periods, from the development of French road races in the 1970s as a means of emancipation for many Kenyan athletes, to the forms of discrimination these athletes suffered when their sporting domination hindered the development of French long-distance running in the 1990s, before the organizers sought to limit their participation from the mid-2000s onward.