Around this time last year Joy Kollie, a resident of one of Monrovia’s biggest townships, lay feverishly in a hospital bed surrounded by sick patients. It was the peak of the Ebola outbreak, in the country hardest hit by the disease, and Kollie, 22, kept thinking of her sister, whom she had lost to the virus.
Her own hospital stay, she says, was down to malaria and typhoid, but Kollie was nevertheless a victim of Ebola in many ways. When she was eventually discharged, neighbours feared she was somehow contagious. Most stopped talking to her. But Kollie had survived too much to let it drag her down.
This Sunday, she hopes to cross another finish line to repeat her triumph of 2013, when she took the women’s title in Liberia’s only marathon.
The race is one of only a handful in a region where all other sports are a distant second to football, but it was cancelled last year as the virus claimed an estimated 7,900 lives across three west African countries; the death toll now runs at more than 11,300 worldwide.
For marathon participants, many of whom are Ebola survivors, being able to compete again is the latest sign that Liberia is getting back on its feet after being declared Ebola-free in September, 17 months after the disease took hold in one of the world’s poorest countries.
“In hospital it was scary. I saw too many things. All I was thinking was, let me move out of here because I want to run that race,” says Kollie, who has since become a vocal spokeswoman for the event’s destigmatisation message. A few weeks after coming out of hospital, she was back to training, determined to win the race even if she couldn’t outrun the whispers.
“After I came back home everybody was running away from me. Nobody wanted to be my friend,” says Kollie, whose four weekly runs take her through traffic-choked, potholed streets and litter-strewn beaches.
Even without the stigma of Ebola trailing her, Kollie had long faced hurdles, not least the lack of long distance coaches in Liberia. With no equipment, it is difficult to stagger runs, let alone be certain of the distance of each one. She trains before daybreak with a torchlight, to avoid men who stare and catcall. And in a country where per capita GDP is just below $470 (£311) annually, she can only afford to replace her shoes once a year.
Long underfunded by the region’s governments, sport is helping to unite communities torn apart by Ebola. In Sierra Leone, survivor Erison Turay, who lost 38 family members to the disease, set up the first ever Ebola football league.
The marathon was launched in 2010, just seven years after the end of Liberia’s second civil conflict, and it came to symbolise unity in a country still struggling with the ghosts of war. Wheelchair and crutch users are allowed to participate – meaning victims of the war can also compete.
“This [year’s] race symbolises the fact that we have risen yet again,” says Eunice Dahn, one of the organisers, who is expecting roughly 2,000 participants on Sunday. “We drive around Monrovia on Saturday and Sunday mornings and there’s quite a lot of people out there running. It’s inspiring.”
Ebola’s economic impact has been almost as devastating as the physical toll. Normally able to raise enough money through sponsors and donors, the marathon organisers struggled to cover costs this year despite a crowdfunding campaign. The prize money – which Kollie hopes to win to put her surviving sister through school – has been drastically scaled back, too.
Alongside other outside sports like cricket, long-distance running is growing in popularity in football-mad west Africa, where runners traditionally gravitate towards sprinting.
“The marathon is providing an opportunity – if you build it, people will come,” says Peter Harrington, a co-founder of the race. Kollie says she dreams of one day competing against Kenyans – although a lack of electricity in the slum where she lives means she’s rarely able to watch international races.
The race is certified by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the world governing body for track and field events, meaning participants can use it as a springboard to qualify for major competitions around the world. But it also aims to become a serious event in its own right. Competitors come from as far afield as Kenya and Ethiopia. Last year, two Liberian runners were sent to training camps in Eldoret, the long distance mecca in Kenya’s highlands.
On Sunday, ambulances that once raced through the streets picking up Ebola patients will be on quiet standby for the runners. The race winds past a now empty Ebola treatment centre, and the finishing line is in front of the hospital where Kollie watched others die of the disease around her. “‘Joy is my name and when I run, I feel joy in my heart,” Kollie says, before adding – almost to herself – “You can make it – if you just can run, just run.”
