Outside Magazine

Aliphine Tuliamuk visualized the finish line of the Olympic Trials marathon long before she touched down in Atlanta in February 2020. The 32-year-old Kenyan American had won road races before, but she was the tenth seed going into this one—a long shot, or at least an underdog. She would toe the start line with more than 400 other women, hoping to finish in the top three. She’d thought about this moment for 12 years.

On the morning of the marathon, Aliphine is feeling stressed and physically off. Her right leg hurts. By the time she emerges from her hotel room, her coach, Ben Rosario, sees that she looks frightened. He gives her a pep talk and reminds her to smile. (“A happy Aliphine is a dangerous Aliphine when it comes to racing,” he says later.) Once she arrives in the lobby, the spectators milling around see an entirely different runner. Dressed in her team’s signature Diva Blue, she strides across the street to Centennial Olympic Park. Standing at the start, she’s self-possessed, elegant, hungry. When the race begins she takes off, her homemade red, white, and blue beanie quickly disappearing around the bend.

Throughout the race, there are only two nonwhite women at the front of the pack: Aliphine and Sally Kipyego, who is also Kenyan-American. During the TV broadcast on NBC, they’re almost always in the frame, but they are rarely talked about. The commentators—all of them white men—discuss the athletes to watch: Des Linden, Emily Sisson, Molly Seidel. Aliphine’s name doesn’t come up.