Refugee runner D. Lobalu wins Swiss 10,000 m championships in 27:58.79. 1. Eric RÜTTIMANN, first Swiss - 30:09.97

Lobalu, the winner, originally from South Sudan dreamed about becoming a footballer but was encouraged to run when he was spotted by a former teacher.

From the article, in French, salient points:

1. Move to Kenya at a young age as a refugee and stayed in Kenya for 10 years in the Nairobi region. Competed as part of the refugee team in Kenya in international competitions in athletics.

2. Moved to Switzerland in 2019 and was spotted by the top runner in Switzerland, Tadesse Abraham, who helped him with the paperwork to stay in this country, Switzerland, which is a difficult country to migrate to.

How are the Swiss not among the best with their high altitude and their hills everywhere for hill training?

In Switzerland, the media pays much more attention to football/soccer and alpine skiing and with the latter Swiss skiers have placed very prominently in the world championships and Olympics. For a small country Switzerland also acquits itself very well in soccer. Running is not a popular sport but there is quite a lot of jogging for health. In Norway, also a small country in terms of population, endurance sports are much more popular with cross country skiing and long-distance running. It’s a cultural thing. Aside from Julien Wanders, there are no outstanding Swiss long distance runners at this time.

Unfortunately no doping available.

Doping is not a prerequisite to high-performance in athletics and we have seen that time and again. The point about athletics not being a very high elite sport in Switzerland with a lot of depth is that it is unlikely that the Swiss athletics Federation has unlimited funds to support Swiss athletics and to start with there is probably a lack of passion in general although you wouldn’t think that was the case when you look at the Zürich meeting in August.