Faith Kipyegon

Life and work

Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon (born 10 January 1994) is a Kenyan middle and long-distance runner. Kipyegon is the world record holder for the 1500 metres and the mile, and she is the former world record holder for the 5000 metres. Kipyegon is the only three-time Olympic champion in the 1500 metres, having won a gold medal each at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro, 2020 Tokyo, and the 2024 Paris Olympics. She also won a gold medal in the 1500 metres at the 2017, 2022, 2023 and 2025 World Championships and in the 5000 metres at the 2023 World Championships.

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Kipyegon became the first athlete ever to win three consecutive gold medals in the 1500 m women's race, where she also set a new Olympic record. In addition to the 1500 m, she had previously earned a silver medal in the women's 5000 m, after successfully appealing a disqualification.

As a junior, Kipyegon won gold medals at the 2011 and 2013 World Cross Country Championships and in the 1500 m at the 2011 World Youth Championships and the 2012 World Junior Championships. Kipyegon is one of only eleven athletes to win world championship titles at the youth, junior, and senior levels of an athletic event.

Kipyegon was cited as one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2017. On 21 November 2024, the University of Eldoret conferred its first honorary degree on Kipyegon in recognition of her accomplishments and for her "humility and grace."

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 10 km and half marathon specialist. Her father Samuel Kipyegon Koech was a 400 m and 800 m runner in his youth, while her mother Linah Koech also had contact with athletics. Faith was a football player until she was introduced to athletics at school aged 14. She lined up for a one-kilometre run in P.E. class and won that race by 20 metres. She attended Winners Girls High School in Keringet.

Kipyegon is married to middle-distance runner Timothy Kitum, the 2012 Olympic 800 m bronze medallist. They have a daughter, Alyn, born in June 2018.

She trains in Kaptagat (and Kapsabet) and has been coached since the end of 2017 by Patrick Sang, triple global 3000 m steeplechase silver medallist, who is also coaching marathon world record-holder Eliud Kipchoge. Up until 2017, Kipyegon was coached by former Dutch athlete Piet de Peuter.

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 won the gold medal with her under-20 team (it was a Kenyan 1–4 sweep). Later that year, she showed her track potential by finishing third in the 1500 metres at the Kenyan World Junior Championship Trials in Nairobi.

Running barefoot again, Kipyegon improved by two places and won the individual gold medal at the 2011 edition in Punta Umbria, Spain, adding a silver with her team. A few months later, she raced the 1500 m 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.

Her 2012 season started with a bang as, after the 800 metres race in April, she set a swift national junior 1500 m record of 4:03.82 at the Shanghai Diamond League meeting (5th) the following month. 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. At the World Junior Championships held in July in Barcelona, she ran a championship record again to claim gold in her specialist event significantly ahead of the field with a time of 4:04.96; Serbian Amela Terzić and Ethiopian Senbere Teferi took second and third place respectively. 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.

This section adapts selected passages from Faith Kipyegon by Wikipedia contributors. It is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected passages; pronunciation guides, lists and reference markers omitted; punctuation and paragraph breaks adjusted. Photographs have separate licences.