Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon (born 10 January 1994)[3] is a Kenyan middle- and long-distance runner. Kipyegon is the current world record holder for the 1,500 metres and mile, and the former world record holder for the 5,000 metres. Kipyegon is the only three-time Olympic champion in the 1500 metres race, having won a gold medal each at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2024 Paris Olympics. She also won a gold medal in the 1,500 m at the 2017, 2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships and in the 5,000 m at the 2023 World Athletics Championships. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Kipyegon became the first athlete ever to win three consecutive gold medals in the 1500m women's race, where she also set a new Olympic record. Kipyegon had earlier on in the 2024 Paris Olympics also earned a silver medal in the women's 5000m race, an event marked by controversy. Initially disqualified for obstruction, Kipyegon's second-place finish was later reinstated. Beatrice Chebet edged her out to win the gold.[4]
Kipyegon was cited as one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2017.[6] On 21 November 2024, the University of Eldoret, at its 13th graduation ceremony, conferred its first honorary degree, an Honorary Doctorate of Education, on Kipyegon in recognition of her accomplishments as a world and Olympic champion and for her "humility and grace."[7][8]
Early life and background
Faith Kipyegon was the eighth of nine children growing up on a farm in a village near Keringet, Nakuru County in the Kenyan Rift Valley. She comes from the Kalenjin tribe. Her elder sister and former training partner Beatrice Mutai is a 10km and half marathon specialist. Her father Samuel Kipyegon Koech was a 400m and 800m runner in his youth, while her mother Linah Koech also had contact with athletics. Faith was a soccer player until she was introduced to athletics at school aged 14. She lined up for a one-kilometer run in P.E. class and won that race by 20 metres. She attended Winners Girls High School in Keringet.[9][10][11]
Personal life and coach
Kipyegon is married to middle-distance runner Timothy Kitum, the 2012 Olympic 800m bronze medallist. They have a daughter, Alyn, born in June 2018.[12]
In 2010, at age 16, a barefooted Kipyegon made her international debut at the World Cross Country Championships held in Bydgoszcz, Poland, competing against athletes up to three years her senior. She placed fourth in the women's junior race as the youngest finisher in the top 21, and earned the gold medal with her under-20 team (it was a Kenyan 1–4 sweep).[14][15] Later that year, she showed her track potential by finishing third in the 1500 metres at the Kenyan World Junior Championship Trials in Nairobi.[11]
Running barefoot again, Kipyegon went three better and won the individual gold medal at the 2011 edition in Punta Umbria, Spain, adding a silver with her team.[16][11] A few months later, she raced the 1500m at the World Youth Championships in Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France, taking the women's crown, ahead of two Ethiopian, runners with a time of 4:09.48, breaking the championship record in the process.[17]
Her 2012 season started with a bang as, after the 800 metres race in April, she set a swift national junior 1500m record of 4:03.82 at the ShanghaiDiamond League meeting (5th) the following month.[3] In June, the 18-year-old won the event at the Kenyan Junior Athletics Championships, and finished third at the Kenyan Olympic Trials to secure a spot on the national team for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.[3][18] At the World Junior Championships held in July in Barcelona, she ran a championship record again to claim gold in her specialist event way ahead of the field with a time of 4:04.96; Serbian Amela Terzić and Ethiopian Senbere Teferi took second and third place respectively.[19] She placed ninth in her heat at the London Olympics in August in a time of 4:08.78 (sixth after later doping disqualifications), failing to advance to the semi-finals.[20]
On 25 August, Kipyegon won a silver in the 1500m event at the World Championships held in Beijing. After a tactical race she finished second in a time of 4:08.96 behind only then fresh world record holder Genzebe Dibaba who clocked 4:08.09. Sifan Hassan representing the Netherlands was third in 4:09.34.[26]
On 11 September, she secured her first Diamond League victory, winning the mile race in Brussels. It was a notable success as she set a meeting and African record of 4:16.71, beating Hassan who ran 4:18.20 in the final stretch.[27]
2016: First Olympic title in Rio
Kipyegon got her Olympic campaign off to a strong start on 14 May, racing the 1500m at the Shanghai Diamond League. She improved her own 2013 Kenyan record to 3:56.82 for the win, also setting the meeting record. Two weeks later, she repeated all these feats at the Eugene Diamond Race meet in Oregon, USA, lowering her national record to 3:56.41.[18] She also notched up victory in the mile event at the Oslo Diamond League in June.[3]
Kipyegon celebrates her first Olympic 1500 m victory in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
The then 22-year-old became the Olympic 1500m champion in Rio de Janeiro reversing the order from the previous year's World Championships. She outsprinted Dibaba in the final 200m in what was initially a very slow tactical race, with a third lap in 56.80 and last 800m in a fast 800m races pace of 1:57.2.[28] Kipyegon clocked 4:08.92, Dibaba 4:10.27 and Jenny Simpson was third in 4:10.53.[29][30]
2017: First senior world title
Kipyegon earned her first Diamond League 1500m Trophy, winning three races in Shanghai, Eugene and Brussels.[3] It was the first season of the series to feature the new championship-style system in which overall event winners are determined only by the results of the final meet. Kipyegon outsprinted her rival Sifan Hassan at the Brussels Final in September, 3:57.04 to 3:57.22.[31]
Her best success of that year was the first place at the London World Championships in August, becoming the first Kenyan female world 1500m champion and only the third woman in history to win both the Olympic and World Championships finals over the distance. The 23-year-old ran 4:02.59 while a further three women also recorded times below 4:03, with Jenny Simpson in second and Caster Semenya in third.[32][10] "I won the Olympics in 2016 but the victory at the World Championships in 2017 was sweeter because I fought the hardest. In 2016 Rio, I was only wary of Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia because I had a fantastic season. In London, Caster Semenya, Dibaba, Sifan Hassan, Laura Muir and Jennifer Simpson were all gold medal prospects." Kipyegon said.[10]
2018–2020: Motherhood and comeback, world championship silver medallist
Kipyegon followed her doctor’s advice and trained until she was between four and five months pregnant. She gave birth to her first child, a daughter Alyn, in June 2018 by a caesarean section due to the wrong position of her baby. Kipyegon returned to training in January 2019 after an almost 18-month break. At the end of June six months later, 12 months after the childbirth, she made her racing comeback in style, winning her specialty in 3:59:04 at the Eugene Diamond League, the Prefontaine Classic, held that year in Palo Alto.[12][34]
Kipyegon went on to take the silver medal at the World Championships in Doha, where she chopped more than two seconds from her 2016 Kenyan record in the final with a time of 3:54.22. Sifan Hassan came first in 3:51.95 while third-placed Gudaf Tsegay set a personal best of 3:54.38.[35]
In 2020, she competed at the Diamond League and Continental Tour meetings staying unbeaten in all her six races. In August, she ran the second-fastest time ever, an African and Diamond League record in the 1000 metres at the Herculis meet in Monaco, with her result of 2:29.15 just 0.17s short of the world record set back in 1996 by Svetlana Masterkova.[3][36][37]
2021: Second back-to-back Olympic title in Tokyo
In 2021, Kipyegon greatly improved her 2019 Kenyan national record at the Diamond League meetings. On 10 June, she ran 3:53.91 at the Rome Golden Gala, staged in Florence, to finish second just behind Sifan Hassan who clocked 3:53.63. On 9 July at the Monaco Herculis, Kipyegon chopped nearly three seconds from that mark for a win, stopping the clock at a world-leading 3:51.07 – the fourth-fastest female performance in history at the time and just one second off Genzebe Dibaba's world record, which was also set in Monaco in 2015. She outsprinted Hassan in the home straight by about 2.5s.[38]
In the women's 1500m final of the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics in August, Kipyegon overtook Hassan in the last 200m to secure her second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the event in a time of 3:53.11, breaking the Games record which had stood for 33 years. She became the second woman in history to win back-to-back Olympic 1500m titles. While Hassan faded in the home stretch (3:55.86 for third)[39][40][41]
In September, she beat Hassan again at the Zürich Weltklasse Diamond League final to take her second 1500m Diamond Trophy. Kipyegon won nine out of her ten races of the season.[3][42]
2022: Second senior world title
In May, Kipyegon claimed victory in her signature event at the Eugene Diamond League in USA.[43]
At the World Championships held also in Eugene in July, Kipyegon decisively won the 1500m gold medal with a time of 3:52.96, which made her the first female athlete to win four global titles over the distance. Gudaf Tsegay placed second in 3:54.52 while Laura Muir earned bronze (3:55.28).[44]
On 10 August at the Monaco Diamond League, Kipyegon came within 0.3s of Dibaba's world record with 3:50.37 to set her new Kenyan record and the second-fastest performance in history at the time. She split 60.5 / 62.1 / 62.1 / 45.67 (last 400m in 61.3s) and as of August 2022 held six of the thirteen fastest women's 1500m marks in history.[45][46][47] She ended her successful season with a clear victory at the Zürich circuit's final the following month, this time closing strongly after a tactical race (last lap in 57.75 and last 200m in 27.8) to earn her third Diamond League 1500m title.[48] Kipyegon won all her six 1500m races of the season.[3]
Kipyegon got her 2023 campaign off to a strong start on 4 February with a dominant victory at the Sirikwa Cross Country Classic (10km) on home soil in Eldoret.[49]
On 2 June, she eventually got the only thing that was missing on her resume, setting a world 1500m record of 3:49.11 to become the first woman in history to break the 3:50-barrier in the discipline. The 29-year-old sliced almost a second from Dibaba's mark (3:50.07) while running a big negative split at the Rome Diamond League staged that year also in Florence. She hit 800 in 2:04.1, as a pacemaker was asked for (WR pace was 2:02.7), and passed the bell in 2:50.2 (Dibaba hit the bell at 2:50.3). Kipyegon was sensational over the final two laps, running her last 800 in 2:00.6, last 400 in 58.81, and last 200 in 29.2. The entire race field congratulated and embraced her after her lap of honour.[50][51][52][53][15]
Kipyegon made it two world records in a week after breaking exactly seven days later, on 9 June, Letesenbet Gidey's 5000 metres world standard of 14:06.62 set in 2020. Faith's second world record came as a surprise as it was her first race over the distance since 2015 and her third ever. Racing in a thrilling duel with Letesenbet at the Paris Diamond League, she smashed her old PB (14:31.95) and sliced 1.42s off that world record with a time of 14:05.20. She overtook her with 600m to go but Letesenbet was closely following, with both lagging about six seconds behind the world record pace. Kipyegon ran a last lap in 60.6s and dropped Letesenbet in a sprint finish in the last 200m timed at 28.1s, even faster than in her 1500m world record race. She became only the second woman in history to hold both the 1500m and 5000m records simultaneously after Paola Pigni in 1969, and the first Kenyan woman to hold the latter.[54][55][56][33]
On 21 July 2023, at the Monaco Diamond League, Kipyegon ran 4:07.64 in the mile, breaking Sifan Hassan's mile world record of 4:12.33 which had stood since 2019.[58]
2024: New 1500 m world record, back to back to back 1500 m Olympic gold, and Olympic 5000 m Silver
In June 2024, at the 2024 Kenyan Olympic Trials in Nairobi, Kipyegon won both the 1500m and 5000m, in times of 3:53.99 and 14:46.28, respectively.[60]
On 7 July 2024, at the Meeting de Paris, Kipyegon broke her own 1500m world record by seven hundredths of a second, running 3:49.04.[61][62]
At the Paris 2024 Olympics, after initially winning the silver medal in the women's 5,000 metres, Kipyegon faced disqualification for obstruction of Ethiopian athlete Gudaf Tsegay. However, she was later reinstated to her silver medal position behind her compatriot, gold medalist Beatrice Chebet, following a successful appeal.[63]
Kipyegon ended her campaign at the Paris Olympics with gold in the 1500m, breaking her own Olympic record with a time of 3:51.29. She outsprinted silver and bronze medalists Jessica Hull and Georgia Bell to win by a margin of 1.27 seconds.[64]
On 14 September 2024, Kipyegon won the 1500 metres at the 2024 Diamond Leaguefinal in Brussels, Belgium, in a meeting record time of 3:54.75.[65]
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References
↑ "Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon". London 2012. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Limited. Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
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