Athletics was my passion, not law — Gladys Shollei

Uasin Gishu woman representative Gladys Boss Shollei says she wanted to be an athlete in her young days.

In an interview with Massawe Japanni on Radio Jambo, the former registrar of the judiciary blamed peer pressure for influencing her against the idea of pursuing athletics as a career and believing it was not a good career.

“I was very good at athletics in school but at that time people were laughing at us, and they used to call us 'hero-metric'. I ended up studying law, which was not my passion,” she said. "I have even participated in the Lewa Marathon."

Shollei says the ‘Hero-Metric’ tag came after an advert that had famous marathoner Kipchoge Keino appeared with the phrase, ‘Hero-metric, definitely a long distance runner’.

“I couldn’t stand the mockery, so I quit running because I wanted to be posh. I started doing swimming and tennis,” Shollei said.

She says in those days, female athletes were ridiculed and mocked.

“These days I regret because had I been an athlete, I would be a billionaire right now. I ended up being a lawyer and I'm yet to make as much money as these athletes.”

During the interview, Shollei also opened up about her 25-year marriage to Sam Shollei.

She confessed the most annoying thing about her partner and also what she does that gets on his nerves. "He comes home with visitors without alerting me," she said. Gladys Shollei also revealed her secret to success in marriage.

"The same way you come to work every day and every time you face a different challenge, you find a solution and you work on it, I think that’s the way you should look at marriage. You have to keep working at it. I can’t say there is a formula to marriage," she said.