Beyond the training ground: How coach Ruth Bundotich is nurturing stars to global glory
Athletics
By
Stephen Rutto
| Dec 13, 2025
In Kamwosor, where athletics coach Ruth Jepchumba Bundotich has turned girls and boys into world beaters, the soft-spoken tactician is best known as a bighearted teacher.
Bundotich’s modest home located opposite Metkei Girls in Kenya’s Elgeyo Marakwet County has for over a decade been a residential camp for tens of junior athletes chasing gigantic dreams.
On one side of the village home is a dormitory for girls and on the other, is a small hall where boys retire to in the evening after action-packed hours of stomping the training grounds, fine-tuning speeds and endurance under Bundotich’s watchful eyes.
Bundotich is still basking in the glory of a major recognition by World Athletics, a feat that honoured her 31 years of nurturing young talents.
On November 29, she was surprisingly announced as the recipient of the 2025 World Athletics Woman of the Year Award, in honour of her outstanding leadership, commitment to athletes’ development and exceptional contributions to the growth of women’s athletics in Kenya and beyond.
As young athletes ushered us into her compound, we find the coach in the middle of a conversation with other budding stars, most of them teenage girls.
The athletes, a majority of them from humble backgrounds, were about to settle down for lunch just moments after their morning training sessions and completing camp chores including washing their own clothes and cleaning their dormitories. The camp had started at Kamwosor Primary School 14 years ago before shifting to its current location in 2017.
“I lived in the same house with my athletes in 2017 before building dormitories for them a year later. Winning championships are memorable but they come from the strength of the relationships.”
This former UConn men’s basketball team head coach Jim Calhoun’s quote quickly crossed my mind as we sat down in a living room with medals brought here by her protégés saliently hanging on the wall.
10km world record holder Agnes Ngetich joined the camp in April 2015 when she was a young girl, but with a dream to become a star. Some of her medals stand out in coach Bundotich’s living room. It reminds the tactician of her successes.
Bundotich seems to follow in Calhoun’s wise words as she goes beyond the training grounds to build a generation of athletes that hold societal values dearly as they balance athletics careers with education.
She says recognition by World Athletics as woman of the year was the least of her expectations as a coach.
With the recognition, Bundotich says, her contributions off the track and beyond the training grounds have paid off at last.
“I was at the women fellowship at my local church (Full Gospel Churches of Kenya Kamwosor) when the announcement that I had been named the 2025 Woman of the Year by World Athletics. I had been informed weeks before by Athletics Kenya (AK) that the federation had forwarded by name and profile for the awards,” says Bundotich.
But her journey to global recognition has been punctuated by bravery in the face of challenging battles in the push to achieve a lofty dream of producing all-rounded and ethical athletes.
Her moment of glory came in 2023 when she was named in Team Kenya to the World Cross Country championships in Bathurst, Australia. In the team was her athlete Agnes Ngetich.
At Bathurst, her passion for athletes’ welfare off the training grounds played out after she sourced ugali for the team, which had arrived ahead of her.
“I discovered that ugali was missing from the menu at the hotel where Team Kenya had been booked into. Two days before the World Cross Country championships action, I spoke with Australian officials who helped me secure maize grain which we ground to flour and I cooked for the team,” recalls Bundotich.
She went on: “On the eve of the World Cross Country event, we found a supermarket with maize flour and Team Kenya management offered to buy enough packets for the team and when the athletes returned from their afternoon jogging, they found ugali ready. It was their happiest moment. I felt proud balancing coaching and welfare.”
She had previously accompanied Kenyan youngsters to Eritrea for the 2018 Eastern Africa regional youth championships.
During the assignments, she says, her management abilities were identified.
Assuming the role of a mother and teacher has superbly propelled Bundotich to a number of wins in and off the training grounds and track.
Alongside her husband Stephen Ruto, a pastor, the couple has turned their small farm into a food production unit to supplement inadequate food brought in by the rising stars from their homes.
“Most of the athletes, especially the girls, come to the camp as young as 11 years old. The biggest challenge has been to mould them into successful women in society when they grow up; that is why I adopted a holistic approach in training. It is discipline first and training will be seamless,” Bundotich says. She goes on: “We teach them how to cook for themselves and do things with precision and speed.”
In 1994, when she started teaching at Kaplelwa, which later changed name to Chebara Primary school in Mogotio, Baringo County, Bundotich who was a middle distance athlete in primary and secondary school started coaching kids.
She reveals that she was only 22 years old at the time and she would join children in playing, a move that made her appear childish at a time when teachers were expected to approach teaching and learning with seriousness.
She would later take athletics training to Muserechi Primary School also in Baringo where she served as a teacher from 1996 to 2005 before shifting to Kapsowek Primary school where she guided athletes such as track and road athlete Hillary Kemboi and long distance racer Kipkemoi Kipsang.
The idea of setting up a residential school was born at Kamwosor Primary School (Elgeyo Marakwet) where Bundotich has taught for nearly two decades since her transfer from Kapsowek.
Her passion for training kids earned her an athletics training opportunity spearheaded by the Kenyan federation in Nakuru in 2007 and after sharpening her skills, she met former marathon world record holder Dennis Kimetto and mentored him.
Kimetto would later make history by running a world record time of 2:02:57 and becoming the first man to dip under 2:03 in the classic distance.
“The most recent recognition was the inclusion of a dozen coaches who enlisted for advanced coaching training in Miramas (France) earlier this year. It was a partnership between Elgeyo Marakwet County and the French. From France, I got engaged in training teacher coaches,” she says.
She attributes the achievement for a training opportunity in France to efforts by former Elgeyo Marakwet County executive for sports Purity Koima.
As she nurtured the talents, Bundotich assumed responsibilities of ensuring that a number of the junior athletes who were on the verge of dropping out of school over lack of basic needs and requisite fees, balanced academics and running.
“I used my salary from teaching to pay for transport to a number of my athletes when schools reopen after the holidays. For those who came from extremely vulnerable families, I had to step in and pay school fees. In some instances where I was unable to raise school fees, I approached school principals to allow them to continue learning.
“I am happy that a number of them completed high school and some of them secured student-athlete scholarships in the United States,” says Bundotich.
Marion Jepngetich, Damaris Cherono (third at 2025 Federation of East Africa Secondary School Sports Association (FEASSSA), Naomi Kemboi (winner of 5000m at the 2024 Track Night Vienna), Caren Kiplagat Kemboi’s runner-up in the Vienna race) and Damaris Cherono (fresh from a third place in 3000m at FEASSSA) are among Bundotich’s stars who have attained student-athletes scholarships and are now balancing education and athletics in the US.
Even when the camp run by Bundotich earned support from Adidas Running and Ikaika management in 2023, many people expected the coach to build for herself a mansion or reward herself with a sleek car but she continued supporting her athletes to get education while training.
“I set goals and often work towards achieving them. In several instances, I had to battle for my space in race officiating especially in school games. Often, some people felt that officiating was for men.
“Eventually, I was accepted and officiated in a number of events at the county and regional levels.
“I thank those who supported me when we faced challenges,” she further says.
Damaris Cherono and Brance Rotich are (to name a few) some of Bundotich’s athletes who competed at the 2025 National Cross Country Championships staged in Eldoret in October.