VOA · Arts & Culture
Intermediate · B1–B2learner speed7:182025-03-05public domain
The Arts & Culture beat covers music, film, museums, food, and traditions from the United States and around the world. The reports are short, vivid, and full of everyday descriptive language — great for learners who want vocabulary beyond textbooks.
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01As day breaks over the small Kenyan town of Eton, its dusty paths come alive with groups of runners.
02Often the groups are followed by children headed to school.
03Some of the runners are top Kenyan athletes.
04Others travel from farther away.
05All are here because of Eton's altitude.
06At about 2,400 meters above sea level, it has produced some of the best long-distance runners in the world.
07The town is about 350 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
08To serve the ever-growing interest from both professional and amateur athletes, hotels and other short-stay housing businesses continue to open around Eton.
09Ryan Max, a partly professional runner and trainer, came from the southern European island nation of Malta.
10He brought three athletes with him to get a competitive edge ahead of his country's marathon season.
11Marathons are foot races with a distance of about 42 kilometers.
12Max is visiting Eton for the first time.
13Next time I want to come with a larger group, since we really like the training environment here, he said.
14This is the best place in the world to come for a training camp.
15Eton is home to about 42,000 people, mostly farmers.
16It has also been a temporary home to many world champions, including two-time Olympic gold medal winning runners, Eliud Kipchoog and David Rudisha.
17Both are Kenyan.
18Also, British four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah would train in Eton for months at a time.
19The town was declared a World Athletics Heritage Landmark in 2019, and even calls itself the Home of Champions.
20Lorna Kiplegott, a Kenyan-born three-time Olympian for the Netherlands, attended high school in Eton.
21She is the 2008 World Half Marathon champion, and now owns a training center in the town.
22If 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, Kiplegott explained.
23Amanal Petros, a top marathoner from Germany, spends six months at Kiplegott's center every year.
24Born in the Eritrean Highlands, he was used to running at high altitude.
25He says Eton's high altitude is not the only reason he keeps returning to train.
26I've trained in many places in the USA and Europe, he said.
27Organizing a training partner in Europe is not easy.
28But in Eton, the home of champions, wherever you go, you find a lot of athletes who can train with you.
29Jean-Paul Fourier opened the Curio View Hotel in 2002.
30With just a few rooms at first.
31It now holds as many as 50 guests and includes a fitness center.
32I made a small investment and it has really grown, Fourier said.
33The main training season goes from April to September.
34One man here still remembers what Eton was like before all this happened.
35His name is Brother Colm O'Connell.
36He is a former leader of St.
37Patrick's High School.
38Several champion runners attended the school, including Rudisha, Vivian Chariot, Matthew Berrer, and Brimin Caputo.
39O'Connell first came to Eton to teach in 1976.
40He says that back then, the town was just a few houses and St.
41Patrick's School.
42That was really the starting point of what Eton eventually became.
43What we see today, O'Connell said.
44Its huge change began when the sport became professional, he added.
45Before that, athletes were confined to their place of work.
46But when professionalism came in, athletes could now sit down with their managers and with shoe companies and decide, No, I can become a full-time career athlete.
47O'Connell went on to reform the athletics program at St.
48Patrick's, and 25 of his students became world champions.
49Some of them came back to run their own athletics programs.
50The town around the school expanded fast, as runners from all over the world discovered the training possibilities it had.
51O'Connell estimates there are around 500 visiting runners in the town at any one time throughout the main season.
52We see fun runners.
53We have runners with personal goals.
54We have people running a marathon to fundraise, he said.
55In other words, running is a sport for everybody, and it has something to offer everybody.
56I'm Katie Weaver.
57I'm Katie Weaver.
58I'm Katie Weaver.
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60I'm Katie Weaver.
61I'm Katie Weaver.
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